


Collected Gundam Wing Drabbles

by tb_ll57



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:58:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 76,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Duo says no lights. Heero sees well enough without, but Duo watches all about him with eyes wide, pupils dilated to full black. He feels with his hands, his eyes seeking Heero's, not finding. Duo gasps; Heero only crushes him silent, mouths pressing breathlessly together, not a kiss. They don't kiss. They fuck, and they rut, and sometimes they don't even undress, and the others must know, must smell it on them, see it on them when they sit on opposite sides of the table. Duo won't look at him, then. Duo looks at the damn moon, as if that means something, but Heero doesn't know what, and Duo isn't telling.

Heero says Why do you even want me.

Duo says Why ask dumb questions.

It's not a dumb question. He thinks. Maybe it is. Duo doesn't laugh at him, but Heero punishes him anyway, rubs him into the carpet and leaves blood when he bites. Duo's finger is tender on his spine, Duo's lips linger on his hair, and then he arches, and his nails dig furrows from Heero's buttocks to his shoulderblade.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

When Trowa fell off the high wire and shattered his shoulder, the worst thing was that Cathy thought he'd done it on purpose.

That was more or less the end of his promising career at the circus. He wasn't proud, and he wasn't offended, exactly, but it put things into perspective, to realise she'd been waiting three years for him to bottom out. To realise why she might think that.

He'd turned down Preventers. Turned down Quatre. Turned down university. There weren't really a lot of other options left.

The best thing was having his first orgasm. It came as something of a surprise. He and Quatre-- he, mostly, because he'd been the one to lay down that line in the sand-- they'd never gone beyond heavy petting. But Wufei brushed off his protest with an elegant little sneer, broke the loose button on his denims, and gave him a single salty kiss after. And then shoved him off the bed and told him to make tea.

It wasn't the worst thing, but it didn't exactly break new ground when Trowa found himself doing it.

He was pouring two cups when Wufei deigned to join him. Dressed already. He tossed Trowa's shirt at him. 'Are you staying?' he asked.

Trowa paused with the kettle. 'I didn't think you were offering.'

'You're not going back to L3,' Wufei dismissed him, dismissed the whole affair, and sat at his table with yesterday's paper. He shook it out flat, took his cup when Trowa brought it, and added, 'The couch will be comfortable enough for you. If your shoulder bothers you, you can look for a hotel.'

'How lucky I am in my choice of friends.' Trowa sat. His legs were still a little rubbery, but he was shaking off the lassitude. Orgasm. He wasn't entirely sure he liked it, on reflection. The tea washed away the taste of himself on his lips. He wasn't even sure, entirely, what they'd just done. He wasn't sure how he felt about that either.

Wufei flipped the paper to the Culture section. 'So,' he said then, and put on his glasses. 'Did you try to die?'

Trowa put down his cup. 'Et tu, Brute?'

Wufei looked up. 'What was that blather?'

'Latin.'

'Tch,' Wufei waved him off. 'A mongrel language. A dead mongrel language.'

'Your prejudices are showing.'

'We're not talking about my prejudices. We're talking about your mental illness.'

Trowa drank his damn tea and slammed the cup down. 'I'll look for a hotel.'

'If you like, but I see no reason for you to storm off in a huff.' Wufei turned a page of his paper. 'Trying to die is not the same as succeeding. So perhaps if you go to a hotel you will find yourself in despair and fall out a window. Should I trust you?'

'I didn't try to die.' There was more water, and his teabag still seeped green. He dumped it into the trash bin under the sink, and opened all of Wufei's cupboards until he found the bottles of booze. Rice wine. Of course. It all but burnt off the roof of his mouth, but he took three steady swallows of it, right from the bottle, and filled his tea cup with it too. He said, 'You did this once. I don't remember what I said to you, but I didn't interrogate you.'

'You didn't say anything, in fact.' Wufei turned another page and tipped down his glasses to read a headline. 'That woman did. Catherine. She said that God has a plan for us all and I should take comfort in that. It was drivel, but I suppose it was kind of her to try.'

Trowa absorbed that over several sips of rice wine. His throat was going numb, and the tips of his fingers, so he drank it faster. 'Is that what you were doing? Comforting me by drivelling on my penis?'

'Duo's ideas aren't always bad,' Wufei answered cryptically, and drank his tea.

There was not enough rice wine in the apartment for that news. Trowa drained his cup and stood there holding it. Maybe he ought to have gone to Quatre. There would be guest rooms there, with beds for guests who had broken shoulders, and privacy, because Quatre never had and never would have time to sit and vindictively read newspapers at him. There might have been orgasms there, too, for all he knew. They were nineteen now. All his little rules for survival didn't seem to match up to anything exactly relevant, now. It had taken him three years to place a foot wrong, and he hadn't done it on purpose-- he hadn't done it on purpose, because he hadn't done anything on purpose, maybe, since the day they'd destroyed their Gundams. Including letting Wufei throw him into and out of bed for reasons-- God, he hoped there were reasons, but to save his own life he couldn't have named them. And maybe that was the problem to begin with.

The kitchen light turned Wufei's hair blue, crimped from daily confinement in its elastic, from the shocked and unsteady grip of Trowa's fist there, a surreal ten minutes ago. He wondered where Wufei had learnt how to do that. If it had been another of Duo's not-bad ideas. Maybe the rice wine was stronger than he'd thought.

His tongue didn't quite cooperate. It was clumsy, and he paused to give it the extra effort, forcing out the words smoothly. 'I ap- _preciate,_ ' he said carefully, 'your-- hospitality-- but it seems worth pointing out that blowing me didn't actually-- solve anything.'

Wufei sighed. The toss of his head was impatient, put-upon, his sudden rise and march to Trowa at the sink enough to make Trowa straighten in thin-nerved paranoia. He halted approximately a millimetre from Trowa's hips, the lengths of their torsos pressed just nearly together, looked Trowa crankily in the eye, and then of all things he laughed.

'What?' Trowa asked suspiciously.

'Do you know what the worst thing possible is?' Wufei plucked at the buttons of Trowa's shirt, unthreading them one by one.

'Um,' Trowa said. 'What.'

'Duo being right about everything.' Wufei leant in, from hip to chin, his lips sealing over Trowa's and sucking hard. 'If you ever tell him, I'll kill you.'

He believed it. 'Just to clarify--'

'Trowa,' Wufei told him, 'you fell down. Do you know what you do when you fall down? You get up and you start again. That's all.'

'It can't be that easy.' But Wufei breathed on his ear and and Trowa shivered and hunched into it and was pushed back into the sink for his trouble. 'Wufei.'

'You're fine, Trowa.' Wufei laid a hand on his sling and caught his eyes again. 'Or you will be. Won't you?'

Trowa inhaled. On purpose. Drew a deep breath, filled his lungs, and let it out. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I think I will.'

'Good,' Wufei said, and bit him on the jaw.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'Okay,' Duo said. 'Well. Thanks.'

Heero gingerly peeled off the condom and tied it. It landed in the waste bin with a dispirited fwop. Heero drew the sheet over his waist and held it there with both arms.

'Okay.' Beside him, Duo rubbed his nose, then sighed. 'Well. It wasn't completely awful. Like maybe a four. Three-four.'

'On what scale?' The ceiling fan made regular rotations over their heads, undisturbed by their awkwardness.

'Okay,' Duo said again. Heero gritted his teeth. 'Well. I think maybe I ought to get going. Late night.'

'Can we please just be friends again and stop letting Wufei goad us into bad ideas?' Heero said flatly.

'Yes,' Duo agreed immediately. 'Oh my god, yes. And no-one _ever_ hears about this.'

'Definitely yes.'


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Duo is never jealous of them. Wufei is jealous for him, angry for him, put out because of Duo's lack of emotion over it all. Wufei stops speaking to them, won't answer calls, won't go when they'll be there. Because he won't go, Trowa doesn't go either, apologetic for it, but loyal.

Loyal.

Quatre is glad about it. Glad because someone ought to feel something, and he hates, hates that Duo won't blame them, won't get mad, won't call them out on it. It's got to be wrong. It is wrong, and he knew it was wrong and did it anyway, which is wronger, is worse.

Heero goes to sleep wrapped around him, but when he wakes up, they're on opposite ends of the bed, an acre of empty sheet between them.

They get a single invitation, addressed to both of them, for the annual summer party. They get curious sideways stares, Heero in a spruce green polo, Quatre uncomfortable in a Preventers sweatshirt that doesn't suit him, doesn't sit well on him. Co-workers have long chosen sides, but a few make overtures, bridge the icy gap and offer a few banal words about the barbeque, about local politics, the game on telly. Duo at the grill set aside a special meal for them, soy hamburger, halal meat for Quatre. Thoughtful as ever, with a smile that's as warm on the surface as it ever was, and goes no deeper, lasts no longer than it takes for someone else to capture his attention away. Duo's laugh is bright and instant and happy, and Quatre shrinks away from it. They leave early.

Stop worrying about it, Heero tells him. I don't owe explanations to anyone.

Before the sex was always hurried and intense and unbearable-- stolen kisses, hidden bruises on chests and shoulders and bitten wrists buttoned beneath long cuffs. Now it's odd nights, awkward on flat surfaces, irritable with ridiculous misunderstandings. Boring. The guilt doesn't go away. The guilt never goes away, even when he's tired, even when Heero snaps at him and then is sorry. He is sorry. He remembers stolen nights when Heero whispered that maybe if he left... 

He reaches the day when he realises that Duo must have known. Heero has a particular kind of obviousness. He looks too long at things, his eyes dark and slitted, his fists clenched and pressed against his gut, demanding it to decide. He finds Heero standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Heero says he wanted tea, but the kettle is cold. Heero stares too long at him, then goes back to bed without asking if Quatre will follow.

He packs Heero's bag, the first day of November. He packs an extra pair of socks, a week's worth of underpants, the good wool jumper and leather gloves. He leaves Heero a note-- he writes five notes, then a sixth with good handwriting, handwriting that doesn't shake and doesn't blur from where he wiped his eyes on his index finger. He tells Heero to rent a room and not come back if he can't do it honestly. He spends the night in his office, so he doesn't have to see Heero at all. It's cowardly and he knows it. He does it anyway. That's worse.

Heero leaves. Everywhere. Leaves L4, leaves Preventers. Wufei gives him a grudging call, the last week of December, to tell him Heero rang from Earth. He'll be on one of the MO stations by New Year's, wanted them to know in case they needed to find him. He'll move on from there, too. Heero doesn't have it in him to settle.

He's relieved. That's worst.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Oh, the sex is great. It's the sort of thing that improves with practise-- and they do practise, don't they-- so even the routine of it doesn't much dent that enthusiasm. It's not the sex.

It's just that-- they don't much like each other. It's just there isn't really all that much to like.

(Well. Zechs is tall. Fit. Quite fit. He likes that.)

But Zechs is also an arrogant snob and the perpetual up-tip of his aquiline nose should say it all; except that then Zechs feels some deep-seated need to actually spell it out, point out every flaw in every _thing_ just to, in case anyone had managed to forget, remind them all that _some_ people are accustomed to _finer_ things and the things they have now are not those.

Well of bloody course they aren't. Democracy is like that-- sharing the wealth and all. Actually observing that little voting thing, voice of the people, even if they are ignorant unwashed masses most of the time, or at least people who have better things to do than pay attention to vast global conspiracies. Like-- eating, and finding jobs, and patching bomb-holes in their rooftops. Little things.

And then Zechs will give that little _sniff_ that just sets Duo's teeth on edge, and if it weren't for the fact that Zechs wears his trousers a size too small they would probably have arguments that didn't actually lead to sex, but rather eternal enmity, or at least the office politics version thereof.

(He does wear his trousers too small, though. And hasn't seemed to figure out how to bend at the knees when Duo drops a pen at his feet.)


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _AN: This drabble eventually sparked the fic Whiten Out, also available on this site in my collection._

'Exactly how many people do you sleep with at any one time?'

Duo ignores that. Duo's good at ignoring him, but it doesn't detract from the business Duo is not ignoring, which is blowing him with the kind of skill that comes from lots and lots of practise.

'Yuy?' he says. 'Of course Yuy. Stupid question.' Fingers rolling his balls, a tickling little pressure. Warm sloppy tongue on his tip, long licks. Gentle kisses, close-lipped, before they open over him, let him in. He curls his hand in Duo's hair, holds him there, urges him down. 'The tall one-- Barton? The pretty soft one, Winner?'

'God,' Duo mutters, his first sound in fifteen minutes. He tosses his long braid over his shoulder and redoubles his effort. It's perfunctory now-- no less dedicated, but the heat from the beginning is gone. He's not touching himself anymore, just balanced on his knees, one hand gripping the trailing edge of the duvet.

'Or maybe you just prefer it anonymous. You should hear the rumours. I suppose you do hear them. There's even supposed to be video--' He can't stop himself from one last jab, but the burn in his groin is tightening to a peak. He's going to come. Duo feels it, too, or at least is overly familiar with the signs. Duo sucks hard, opens his throat, lets him in deeper than he's ever-- even just the fact of it is enough. He comes, like a bullet leaving a pistol, that hard. He yells out something flattering, oh fuck, you're amazing, yes-- releases an aching fist with a few long hairs still wrapped around his fingers.

Duo is standing, tucking his shirt back into his trousers, wiping his mouth on his arm. 'We done?' he asks.

'You can't pretend to enjoy yourself, just a little?'

Duo rolls his eyes. 'We're done,' he says again, and zips his fly. 'Am I free to go?'

He eases his pants over his thighs, pulls his trousers up by his belt. 'You were free to come, too.'

Duo tips an imaginary hat. 'Thanks for the privilege, Highness. As ever, your loyal Preventer awaits his next summons.'

'You're wasting yourself. I'd promote you.'

'To royal fuck-toy? Why pay for what you're getting courtesy?' Duo buttons his shirt, twitches his collar straight. 'Don't take it personal, but I prefer to maintain the illusion that all of this is under protest.'

He has a rusty laugh in him, for that. Duo has his moments. 'As you like. Go on back, then. They'll escort you to Barracks.'

Duo slows his march to the door. Then, on the turn of a heel, a hesitation, he turns back. This is different. He never turns back. Zechs sits up slowly, props himself on his elbows. A little warning thrill squirms through his gut, but he doesn't heed it. Curiosity is stronger. The grim set of Duo's face is stronger.

'If we'd won the war,' Duo says, 'I'd have killed you and loved it.'

Zechs nods slowly, twice. He understands. 'But you didn't. And the world we've made between us isn't really so bad.'

'That's the hell of it.' Duo's mouth twists. 'See you next time.'


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'They've put him in one of those places,' Quatre says, bitterly vague. 'I don't know.'

There are reasons they made a pact about drinking. They're not good at it, as a pair. Trowa chokes on the peppery vodka. Quatre tosses it back like water and orders another, another, another.

'I'm surprised Heero let them,' Cathy observes, tentative. Her wine cooler is almost untouched. She will be driving them back to the circus. She might stay with them, sleeping on the couch, to be sure they survive the night. Or that the trailer survives them.

'You know Heero,' Trowa says. 'He can't make those kinds of decisions. It was probably Relena.'

'She doesn't even like Duo,' Quatre says. Too loudly. 'She thinks he's-- he's-- common.'

'He is,' Cathy says, more gently, like her smile is gentle. 'So are we. I happen to like that quite a lot.'

'It's not what Duo would have wanted.'

'We don't know what Duo wanted,' Trowa says.

'Never to be locked up like an invalid in a room wallpapered with mattresses.' Imaginative. Loud. Quatre shoots a double in a single swallow, the glass as delicate as a champagne flute between thumb and forefinger. 'And how do you get better in a place like that? They'll never let him out again. They'll never give up a Relena Peacecraft cheque. I wonder if she bought him a private room.'

There is a certain irony to that. Trowa isn't sure if Quatre's so bothered by Relena's patronage because it's the same thing he would have done, in her place. When you have that much money, it's hard not to see it as the obvious solution. Not that Quatre had it, any more. Maybe he regrets giving it up, now. He could have been the one to help Duo. Maybe he thinks he should have been.

Cathy seems to be thinking the same as he. She subtly waves the bartender away, a little flick of her hand. Then her palm rests on Quatre's wrist, over the watch she gave him for his birthday last year. 'I think we should visit as soon as it's allowed,' she says. 'I think he should know how much we care. And it might help him, don't you think? To know there's something waiting for him. We'll make room for him here, as soon as he's ready.'

'Room in a circus,' Quatre mutters, but he's fading now, that brief burst of rage passing into depression. 'They have a palace. There wasn't room for him there.'

'It's a good idea,' Trowa says, to go along with her, to try and drag Quatre along with them. 'You know he likes it here. And he'd hate it in Sanq. Everybody bowing at him and wondering if he's stealing the silverware.'

'He's not a thief! And if he ever was, it was only because he was hungry, or he needed it--'

There's no possible way Quatre can imagine need that primitive. It's a loyal defence of a beloved friend, not an understanding of him. Duo would steal the silverware. Just because he could. And to be fair, Relena would probably find it funny. Heero is the one who never gets when Duo's laughing at him.

Quatre presses his hand to his face. 'I want to go home,' he says finally. 'I don't want to think about it anymore.'

Trowa is already reaching for his wallet. He slides his credit card across the bar. 'Cathy, can you get the car?'

'Sure, sweet heart.' She leaves a brief kiss on his cheek, her perfume as she slips off her stool past him.

'Quatre?' Trowa asks him. 'Are you all right?'

'Drunk,' Quatre says. 'Not nearly drunk enough. I just can't believe it, Trowa. Not Duo. He's so strong.'

There's nothing to say to that. Sometimes the strong ones break. Sometimes they break because they can't bend. 'He'll get better,' Trowa says.

'He's not ill. He's crazy. They found him sitting in a bathtub full of rotted food. He didn't even know where he was, did Heero tell you that?'

'They'll help him remember.'

Quatre covers his eyes. Then he puts his head on the bar. 'I'm going to be sick.'

He is, too, outside at least, retching pitifully behind the big garbage tins. He lets Cathy wipe his face with a wet napkin like a little boy, and he falls asleep-- Trowa hopes just asleep-- against Trowa's shoulder in the car. They support him between them up the trailer steps, Trowa pulling and Cathy pushing him from behind, and Trowa carries him into their bedroom. They'll weather the hangover. They'll make plans to visit Duo. They'll go as often as they can, of course, even if it disrupts their obligations to the circus, there's no question. Quatre has always loved Duo specially. And it will be mostly love that motivates them.

Not fear. Much. Quatre might always wonder why it's not him who lost his mind, instead of Duo.

Not guilt. Quatre might always know he could have done more, under other circumstances. If Duo had trusted him. If he'd had the resources to help.

Not envy. If there are things Quatre wishes he could forget, he'll never admit it. He's fought too hard to come back from the darkness. He'll fight to free Duo from his.

He watches Quatre stare up at the ceiling all night, though, and knows how much it will hurt.


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Zechs was the first to notice the change in his friend.

Perhaps it wasn't obvious to someone who didn't know Treize as he did. To the rest of the world, in fact, it might have seemed as if he only became more dedicated, more ruthless, more determined. What Une or Noin saw for themselves, Zechs was too afraid to ask.

But theirs was an age of biological warfare. Disease was a weapon, and it had been used on the colonies within their own generation. The Federation had ordered the barrage of Virus YO-448 on Lagrange 5, an attack carried out by Treize himself, only three years ago.

And the Gundam Pilot they believed to hail from Lagrange 5 had just done the unthinkable. He'd used his Gundam not to destroy Treize's battle carrier, but to board it. And he'd been alone with Treize for almost fifteen minutes, and though Treize would not reveal what they'd said or done, Treize had worn a bandage on his left upper arm for a week after, invisible under the bulk of his uniform, but not to the grip of Zechs' hand, errantly causing Treize to gasp in pain when he'd gripped him there. And then Treize had looked him in the eye, called it nothing, and carefully avoided seeing him in private since.

Zechs was quiet because Treize obviously wished him to be so. But he continued to watch. And he noticed the symptoms. The light sweat that never eased. Glassy-eyed staring, until Treize's attention was recalled to whatever was at hand. His increasing paleness-- a translucence, almost, though Treize took up the sudden habit of wearing white gloves that hid his hands, and certainly since the war had begun it was rare he had time to be outdoors. All that Zechs might have overlooked, if not for a single incident.

Zechs had travelled to Brussels to meet with Treize personally, one of the last times, in fact, that they would do so. He came to report on the activities of two rogue OZ officers, who had ignored repeated recall to engage in a bloody massacre of Federation troops. The elimination of that weak and corrupt military had always been their plan, of course, but never wholesale slaughter. Zechs reported his intelligence of the officers, his knowledge of their recent strikes, yet as he spoke he found Treize entirely distracted. Noin, sitting with them, raised her eyebrows more than once when Zechs prompted a question and was ignored. Then suddenly Treize had erupted into an outburst of temper, startling them both into silence. Never in their lives had they seen Treize irritated, much less angry. Yet he struck his computer screen so hard it was nearly knocked from his desk, and as the secretary jumped to help, Treize dragged him near with a fist in his jacket, yanking him over the keyboard. The secretary typed quickly, restarting the computer, running a systems check, all with Treize's hand forcing him hunchbacked and bent. And as Zechs stared, aghast at Treize's behaviour, he saw Treize lean toward the secretary as if to speak-- and saw him _smell_ the man instead, nostrils flaring as if he were an animal picking up the scent, teeth baring in the lamplight.

But he didn't have long to wonder. Events swept him away from his friend, and then he made his fatal break with Treize. When they faced each other again it was in battle, he leading the White Fang, his friend and now enemy leading the combined forces of OZ's military. Consumed with his own duel with Heero Yuy, he was distracted from the brief re-encounter of Treize and the pilot from Lagrange 5, Chang Wufei.

And yet before that encounter, Treize had found his fate in Epyon.

They said Treize resisted not at all. If anything infected him, he took it to his vacuum grave.

It might have been nothing. It might not have been.

Zechs kept his silence-- he knew nothing substantial enough to speak without sounding insane. But what he did know, he watched for. And he waited.

Theirs was an age of biological warfare. Disease was a weapon; and, after all, no weapon was destroyed until its usefulness was past.


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Quatre woke to the realisation that he had just done something very, very stupid.

Then he remembered the stupid thing he had done. The stupid thing was looking down at him from the door, buttoning its pants and trying to sneak out.

Heero froze when Quatre dragged the pillow over his head. 'You're awake,' he said.

'You don't have to talk,' Quatre told the cotton stuffing that was suffocating him. He pressed it down with his arm. 'You can just go.'

He heard no welcome sounds of the door opening. Just feet shuffling on the carpet, and then nothing.

'You're embarrassed,' Heero observed.

'I'm not the one who tried to escape.' He sat up. Gingerly. He had a pleasant ache down below, a far less pleasant headache above, and a dire rush of nausea that did not welcome the change in position. 'Oh,' he groaned. 'Why did you let Duo make me drink so much?'

'You enjoyed it at the time.'

Sharper tone than that warranted. Heero's arms were crossed rigidly over his bare chest. He had a half dozen lurid hickeys-- everywhere.

'Oh,' Quatre said.

Heero's mouth went tight and funny and pursed. 'You're going to be strange now,' he accused. That he said it in the same quiet murmur he always used made it worse, somehow. 'I should have known.'

'I'm not either going to be strange,' Quatre retorted, and said it in the petulant whine he'd always used when he was a child being accused of all sorts of nasty things, of which he'd always been quite guilty. He crossed his arms too. And then just pulled his knees to his chest. 'Do you-- I'm sorry... Never mind.'

Heero slowly eased out of his combative stance. He scratched the door with his thumbnail, glowering uncertainly from his heavy brows, letting his thick hair fall protectively over his face. The angle of his neck showed teeth marks on his collar. Quatre licked his lips reflexively.

'I guess we were on the violent side,' he said.

'Mostly you,' Heero answered. His mouth curved upward, if only for a moment. 'You don't remember.'

'Some hazies here and there.' He'd been far too drunk to think about protection, that he remembered. If this conversation was painful, the one they'd be having about that would break world records. 'Did I, um, hurt you?'

Heero's head snapped up. 'No,' he said, expelling the word like it burned. The naked honesty of his expression moved Quatre. 'It was all... mutual.'

Well. He really couldn't think of anything else, after that.

'It's not quite dawn,' Heero said finally. 'I can get back to my room before anyone else is awake to see.'

Oh, hell. Duo, Trowa and Cathy-- _Wufei_. The very prospect of spending the rest of the reunion under Wufei's smug gaze and tart tongue made Quatre queasy. 'Wise,' he managed airlessly.

Heero nodded. He slipped into his shoes, leaving the laces hanging, and pulled his shirt over his head. He scraped his messy hair away from his face, then back over it. He unlocked the latch, and opened the door.

'Heero,' Quatre said then. 'We didn't talk about... why.'

'Why.' Heero cautiously, maybe automatically closed the door nearly to the jamb. But he waited. He looked back.

'Why-- you and me. Falling--' A number of verbs occurred. His face was hot. And he was in sudden terror of Heero never looking him in the eye again, and after everything, after years of holding back everything humanly possible just to keep Heero in his seat--

'No,' Heero said.

'I never... I would never do anything...' Embarrassing. Hurtful. He had, though. He supposed the awkwardness was payment in full for grabbing at freedom.

From utter openness to a jarring inscrutability. But Heero was still looking at him. Seeing him, maybe. Quatre hugged his knees close.

'No,' Heero said. 'I know.' He opened the door. 'I'll come back. You should have some crackers and coffee. You're not a very good drunk.'

Quatre slumped back to his pillow in relief. The soft snick of the door left him in a deep well of silence, punctuated only by the sick thud of his headache. But before more than a minute had ticked past, he forced himself to rise-- or roll and flop, anyway-- out of the bed, and stumble to the bath.

If Heero was coming back, legions of Leos couldn't have stopped Quatre from brushing his teeth first.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

His heart was pounding so that he was almost weak. Yet he had never felt so strong as he did just this moment. He could have flown the distance between Sandrock and the other Gundam.

'Put down your hands,' he called. 'I surrendered first.'

 

**

 

The other boy was taller than him, though hunkered down in the back of the big jeep, they were both dwarfed by the adults who crowded around them.

'The driver is Rashid Manguanac,' he said. 'This is Mahamoud, Anwer, Gafar, Mehmud, and Jibril. My name is Quatre.' He hesitated, but decided against adding his last name. They were not fast allies, not yet. There would be time. 'We're heading to a secret stronghold,' he said. 'We'll be safe there, for a few days at least.'

A touch to his knee turned his head. It was Gafar, the one closest his age. You shouldn't trust him, Gafar told him. Don't tell him anything about yourself or O-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n-M.

I can trust him, Quatre answered. I know it.

He's a stranger.

I don't think he is.

The other boy was watching them. He said, 'You're deaf.'

Quatre smiled, a reflexive nervous tic. 'Since birth,' he confirmed, taking extra care to shape his words so they would be clear to the boy.

The boy's eyes dipped to the rocking floor of the jeep. Sand sprayed on either side, but the wind was picking up. Their tracks wouldn't last long. 'There's going to be a sandstorm,' Quatre said. 'If we don't get back to the safehouse in time, Mehmud will show you what to do. He'll make sure you're safe. Stay by him.'

'Not you.' The boy seemed amused, the corner of his mouth lifting for just a fraction of a second before it fell flat again.

I don't like him, Gafar signed. He asks too many questions.

He hasn't asked any questions at all, Quatre returned emphatically. Aloud, he said, 'I have to stay by Gafar so he can protect me. It annoys them when I try to be too independent.'

Even Rashid frowned at him for that one, tilting the mirror to scowl at him from the front seat.

The boy did ask a question then, though. He asked, 'How do you pilot? If you can't hear.'

'I have a cochlear implant,' Quatre answered. He turned his head to show the microphone coil he wore over his ear. 'It translates sound frequency into electrical impulses, so I can “hear” a little. But I don't need it, to pilot. There are lights-- vibrations.' He mimicked a quick pat-a-pat of the alert Sandrock gave to register a strike. 'I did as well as you.'

The boy's mouth turned up again. He looked away.

 

**

 

The other boy had found the Music Room.

Quatre watched from the door as the boy slid long fingers over every instrument, as if divining their quality from the sensual communion of skin and ancient wood. The mashrabeya screens over the windows muted the light and cooled the harsh mid-day heat. Framed against them, the boy was only a slim shadow, a ghostly shade that lifted a flute from the rack and warmed the embouchure hole with his lips. His chest rose in a breath, and then his cheeks compressed into a puckered smile as he blew air into the flute.

'Does it sound good?' Quatre asked.

'You can't tell?' the boy asked. He set the flute back, but picked up the one beside it. A wooden flute, the Indian bansuri. His eyebrows rose as he blew into it.

'Simple sounds,' Quatre said. 'I can tell simple sounds. Some voices. I know Rashid and my father and my tutor. I could tell yours, if you spoke more. I can read your lips.'

'Do you mind my asking about it?'

'No,' he said honestly.

'You've never heard music.'

'I like music. I listen to it all the time.'

'What kind of music?'

'I like hip-hop.'

The boy's eyebrows climbed again. 'Hip-hop?'

'It has the best beats.' He grinned, unable to stop himself. 'Vibrations from the speakers.'

'But you can't really hear it. Or the words.'

'Neither could Beethoven.'

That won him another almost-smile. 'You're not what I expected.'

'You are,' he said. 'Play for me.'

The boy seemed to like the bansuri. He blew again, his fingers fumbling only for a few moments before settling confidently over the holes. He said, 'It sounds like... sitting in a small dark room with rain outside. Low and hollow and...'

Quatre's stomach fluttered. He nodded.

 

**

 

The boy's kisses were forceful, quick like lightning strikes. He left Quatre burning wherever his mouth landed, twisted his head to press their lips together until they numbed against his teeth. His hand in Quatre's hair tightened spasmodically; his scalp tingled and pulled. The palm that rubbed rhythmically over his groin squeezed hard, commanding, demanding.

It was perfect.

The boy's sweat-damp forehead rested to Quatre's collar, his breaths coming hot and short on Quatre's tingling skin. He played idly with the zip of Quatre's trousers, lowering it an inch and then tugging the flies closed over the tip of his finger.

'Are you all right?' Quatre asked.

The boy rolled off him, sprawling beside him on the wrinkled duvet of Quatre's bed. 'Too hot,' he said, his brows quirking. His eyes were lazy, his lips flushed red.

'Turn the fan.'

The boy obeyed, stretching a long arm for the small electrical axial. A wash of spice-scented air roved the length of their bodies as the fan oscillated over them.

'When will you go?' Quatre asked finally.

'Tomorrow,' the boy said. 'When your men say my Gundam will be finished. Are they your servants, or what?'

'I think it's more that I'm theirs.' He smiled to the bare plastered ceiling.

'They bring you food. They fix your mobile suit. The one who signs with you even guards your door at night.'

'Only because you're here.' He squirmed onto his side, propping his head up on his fist. 'It's hard to explain. But I don't own them. I don't own this place, either. I'm as much a guest here as you are.'

The boy's finger traced the edge of his ear coil, warming the cool plastic with his touch. 'If your family was poor, they wouldn't have let you be born like that.'

He forced a nonchalant shrug, though inwardly he braced himself. 'I'm handicapped. Not held back. If I didn't have the implant, I would have adapted to that too.'

'I believe you. You can relax again.' The boy traced his lower lip instead. 'Where will you go after this?'

'To Riyadh. We plan to hit the mobile suit factory and the Aramco base.'

'Two in one,' the boy mused. 'The base will be well-defended. They've been fighting off the Saudis for a generation.'

'If you're worried, you're welcome to come along.'

The boy didn't say no. But it was there in his face. He wouldn't be coming with them.

'We could be allies,' Quatre said. He caught himself signing, as it was usually quicker than speaking, and clenched his fist on the boy's chest. 'We could fight together. We're evenly matched. Between us and the Manguanacs, we could defeat bigger targets. We could confront them head-on, instead of fleeing when they outnumber us. And if there are two Gundams, why not more? Maybe we'll find them. If they see us working together, they'll be less suspicious. They'll join us, too.'

The boy didn't deny him that, either. He covered Quatre's fist, pulled slowly on his arm, pulled until Quatre's mouth hovered over his. The boy lifted his head to brush their lips together. Then he nipped, sharp and playful and serious and sad. He rolled Quatre under him, forcing his mouth open for his tongue, and his hand between Quatre's legs went beneath his trousers and his underpants, slick and hot on his sex. He pushed Quatre's pants off his hips, and slid low. His mouth enveloped Quatre, sucking him roughly, his thumbs like iron holding Quatre's knees wide. Quatre closed his eyes dizzily. Only the feel of it anchored him, sightless, soundless, urgently surging and fading.

 

**

 

The boy was almost to the gate when Quatre pushed the screen aside and leant dangerously out the window. Rashid's frantic grab for his belt kept him from tumbling out, but Quatre barely noticed.

'You didn't tell me your name!' he yelled, straining to project his awkward voice across the distance. The boy turned, shading his eyes from the sun, his shoulders caught in a tight hunched vee. 'Your name,' Quatre tried again. 'Your name.'

The boy's mouth moved. Too far for the implant to pick up. Then the boy lifted both hands. He fingerspelled, as Quatre held his breath, squinting desperately to be sure he understood each gesture.

T-r-o-w-a-B-a-r-t-o-n.

Quatre touched his fingers to his chin, moving them down and out. Thank you.

The boy inclined his head. He hefted his bag to his shoulder again, and turned back toward the gate.

'I'll see you again, Trowa,' he called. 'Soon.'

Rashid wore his most disapproving glare, but Quatre could only grin, unrepentant. Rashid chucked him on the tip of the nose.

You'll make me old before my time, the giant man complained, but without resentment. His big hands wove gently through the air. I hope he's a worthy friend.

He is, Quatre said confidently. I just know.


	11. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

The first time they fuck, there's blood. The second time, too. After that, just under fingernails and slick on teeth, before a rough tongue licks it away.

Duo grins through it, not wary at all. Heero knows he is grim, because his facial muscles ache afterward, from being held stonily still. They aren't quiet. They aren't loud, either, but aside from the precaution of finding a private spot, they invite a curious bypasser to investigate heaving breaths, a vicious curse, the smack of flesh against a wall, a floor, bone.

For mutual pride they never engage in lesser acts. No sucking, Duo says, and Heero doesn't like to be touched unnecessarily, so they only use of hands is to rip at zips and hair. It's never stale. It's always rare. And when it's over, Heero doesn't look back when he leaves.

Once, he sees Duo laugh, unabashed, unselfconscious, with Quatre. He never knows what was said, why Quatre smiled shyly, why Duo wiped his eyes after. He never knows why his chest is tight, why his abdomen clenches, why he feels ill and angry and alone.

He never knows why Duo's eyes are always on him, even when they only sit quietly together, not hurting each other at all.


	12. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

They spent half their lives in 'training exercises', which was half the problem. They were the most highly trained force on the planet and beyond, the Specials. Over-trained. The rare times they were allowed to engage in combat it was over within hours. And then it was back to the exercises, to keep them occupied, to keep them in their place. If they had been as unimaginative as their Alliance superiors, that might have been effective. But no-one ever reckoned with Treize Khushrenada.

Not even, as it turned out, Zechs Merquise.

They were leading the younger cadets on what amounted to a camping trip in the woods. Northern Germany was pretty enough, but it was hardly rife with rebel resistance cells. The cadets were restless and inclined to misbehave. Noin was mostly handling it, though, with a careful balance of humiliation and shame. They were in awe of their fiery big sister, and desperate to please her. It left Zechs with almost nothing to do, really. Treize was always occupied, but with his own thoughts, not these degrading little assignments. He managed to sneak away, at nights especially. With Noin supervising the cooking of their supper and the erection of perfectly gridded pup tents for their cadets, Zechs generally took the opportunity to follow Treize for a brief hour or two of privacy.

He found Treize by the light of one of their camp lamps, propped on an old fallen tree trunk and shining not much further than ten feet round. Treize was seated beside the lamp, a book open on his knee.

'Hello,' Zechs said, and bent to press their mouths together. He felt Treize smile, and smiled himself as he straightened. 'It looks like rain later. I hope your tent is water-proof.'

'If not, I'll have to come find yours.'

If only. They almost never had time for each other, just these stolen minutes that might be interrupted at any moment. He settled on the loam at Treize's feet, and offered what he'd brought-- a granola nut bar stolen from the mess as a measure against their camp rations.

'I can do you one better,' Treize said. He took a little plastic bag from inside his fatigues. When it dropped loose from his fingers, Zechs was agape.

'Weed?' he said incredulously. 'You're kidding, right?'

'Have you ever known me to joke?'

'No, so that leaves only two other possibilities. One, you're trying to get something blackmail-able on me; or you're serious.' He took the bag from Treize and turned it in the light. 'Where did you get it?'

'I confiscated it from Cadet Marterson. I'm informed he paid very highly for it.'

'Have you smoked before?'

Treize winked, and laid his finger alongside his nose. Zechs didn't believe him for even a second-- Treize was far too uptight about those things, and even if he hadn't been, his mother certainly was. Grisella Khushrenada would have castrated her son before she let him near anything that produced any kind of smoke.

Still-- 'Fine,' he said. 'Yes. I'll do it.'

'Excellent.'

'This is stupid, though. We'll be seen. Or someone will smell it on us.'

'Only if we forget to bathe, which I suggest is rather uncouth even if one wasn't washing away the evidence.'

'You're going to get me in trouble.'

'The point of this exercise is to relax,' Treize reminded him. 'At least, it is if you're the commanders.' Marterson had had an entire kit with him, apparently. Treize took rolling papers from his fatigues too. Zechs snatched them, and opened the little bag of leaves. They were pungent and crisp. 'You know,' he said, as he sprinkled leaves over one of the wraps. 'This is just like you.'

'I'll bite. Explain.'

'Slick. So easy. Just do what you want to and damn the consequences.' He rolled a joint quickly, already agile fingers even smoother with practise. Treize could pretend what he liked, but he didn't know everything about Zechs, either. Marterson seemed to be much more experienced, though. He'd packed a matchbook in with the baggie. 'I always suspected you had a bit of a criminal at heart.'

'I've been dreaming of a career in politics since I could talk. And since all politicians are consummate criminals--' Zechs shut him up by setting the spliff between Treize's lips. The match lit on the first stroke.

'Inhale,' Zechs whispered.

Treize obeyed him, his eyes very dark in the orange glow of the lamp. 'Getting a little bold in our superiority, are we?' he said.

'Have you ever done this before?'

Treize closed his book and set it aside. 'Show me how, then.' He passed the little wrap, an indulgent smile keeping his lips just barely parted.

Zechs sucked on the damp paper, filling his lungs with pungent smoke. Marterson may have paid well for it, but it wasn't the best that could be had, even at Victoria Academy. It was lucky only Treize had caught Marterson at it, though. It was instant expulsion, no time for second chances. Treize was far more lenient, and it was just as well. Half of their recruits were pampered younger sons of Europe's fat and lazy aristocracy, all long used to indulging their children to the popping point. Though it had almost never been enjoyable, Zechs now looked up his upbringing in the Khushrenada household with gratitude. Colonel Khushrenada was a harsh taskmaster-- and a horrible cook-- but she prized integrity, fitness, and gentlemanly conduct, and she'd instilled those values with the flat side of a spoon when necessary. Not that it had been. Zechs remembered exactly his first day in the Khushrenada's home, and Treize had been everything at nine that he was at nineteen.

Zechs waited until the need to breathe warred with the pleasant tickling in his torso, and let the smoke dribble slowly from his nostrils. He tugged at his zipped jacket, dragging it open at the throat. Treize's fallen tree offered a number of crooks, and he wormed his way into one of them until he achieved a comfortable slump. 'Like that,' he said, husky from the smoke.

'You've done this often.'

'Often enough.' He took a second drag before passing it back. Treize mimicked him almost perfectly-- he never had to be shown anything twice, of course. 'What?' Zechs said.

'Who did you do it with?'

'Oh, like hell I'm telling you that.' Treize chuckled. He examined the little butt with curiosity, turning it this way and that in the lamplight. 'Are you going to let that thing burn out or are you going to smoke it?'

Treize didn't return it. He inhaled again, carefully, taking his time and no doubt savouring the experience simply because it was new; it didn't matter if he ever did it again, and Zechs doubted he would. For Zechs, the novelty was all in watching his friend's face. He enjoyed this side of Treize. It was a rare sighting; it was rare enough they had these little ventures together. Treize had given up his rôle as Instructor as soon as Zechs had graduated from Cadet to Private First Class, on agreement between them both that nothing would be served by stalling Treize's career unnecessarily. It wouldn't be long before Treize would ship out for a permanent posting, though. It ought to have been to the colonies, where there was plenty of hostile action and few officers who knew their way around a battle in Space. Yet Alliance continually retreated from the stars, frustratingly content to let the colonials edge them out inch by inch. Zechs had confidence that Treize would change all that-- and if their superiors in Alliance didn't want to let them, Treize wouldn't find it much of an obstacle.

Zechs finally took back the joint. 'How'd you find this? Marterson didn't just volunteer it out of guilt.'

'Rather rash of him to leave it under his sleeping bag. I noticed the lump during inspection.'

'He resells the stuff.'

'Is it profitable?'

'Not a clue.'

'Have you ever bought from him?'

'Bought, no.'

Treize smiled. 'Kiss me.'

His entire body thrummed on one note. It was an effort to only arch his eyebrow in apparent disinterest. 'You're not high enough yet to be acting horny.'

'We're secure enough to imbibe an illicit substance. We're surely secure enough to risk a little more.'

He didn't look horny. He looked like Treize. He looked like Treize looked when the goal was in sight. Eyes brighter, keener, a hunter's instinctual radar for the prey.

Zechs was a little high. High enough to imagine it hazed over with lust and beauty, not dirt and discomforts like cold rocky ground and the high probability that Noin would come looking for them when all the babies were asleep in their cribs. He was moving before he quite got through a full thought arguing against it, though. He comprehended his hand flat in the loam beneath them, and then his lips were against Treize's. It was quick and dry, and then his back was to the log again.

Treize seemed disappointed. He plucked the joint from Zechs' fingers. He asked, 'When do you start to feel the effect?'

'Aren't you?'

'I don't think so.'

'Take another hit. Hold it longer.' He licked his lower lip. 'Maybe it won't work on you.'

'Does that happen?'

'Sometimes.'

'Ah.'

'Or you could be cheating.'

'I would never.'

'Yes you would, Treize. And it wouldn't even be hard to fake it while I got trashed and at your mercy.'

Treize's teeth gleamed. 'You'd never prove a thing.'

'And that's okay. It's enough to know.'

That was the moment when Zechs' world changed forever. Treize said suddenly, 'I've met someone.'

It was like being deprived of air. That first simulation at Victoria, the half-constructed mobile suit, the helmet, and even though they warned you the simulation was going to cut off your oxygen flow, the terror of it--

His hand shook as he lifted the spliff to his mouth. 'Yeah?' he said hoarsely.

'You remember her. Leia Barton. Dekim Barton's daughter.'

He hesitated. 'Yeah. Redhead.'

'Yes.' Treize smiled briefly, impersonally. 'She says we better resemble siblings than lovers.'

'How long have you been seeing her?'

'We haven't seen each other since I left her colony. We've been writing each other, though.' Treize touched his overcoat, where the breast pocket was. He was carrying a letter now? Like a treasure. Zechs clenched his fist when he couldn't stand the sight of his weak fingers. 'She writes under my mother's name,' Treize said, 'so no-one will know.'

He didn't feel the least bit high any more. 'Is this serious?'

Treize waited until Zechs raised his eyes, all involuntarily. Treize said, 'She's pregnant.'

The man he would be later would have walked away then. The worshipful child he'd been would have quietly excused himself, banished himself to a lonely bedroom to cry himself to sleep one more time in a childhood full of abandonments. The sixteen year old boy he was right then breathed harder through the pain, and returned the attack with a thrust of his own. His voice sounded dead and flat to his own ears. 'Did you mean to throw your entire career away, or were you just having a dumbass attack?' he demanded. 'Mother of God, Treize. You couldn't find a condom?'

Treize's gaze was absolutely level and unmoved. 'I'll marry her, of course. In secret, for now. When the time comes we'll be able to tell her family, and mine, that the child is legitimate.'

'Congratulations.'

'I've applied for leave in four days. I'll fly there. She knows a priest.' He arched his own brow, then. 'They're very Catholic.'

'Is the baby even yours?'

He'd meant it to surprise. He'd expected it to, because anyone stupid enough to sleep with a girl named Barton-- God, Treize had been wounded, hadn't he? Drugged for pain. Dekim Barton hadn't packed Treize off to the military outpost, no, not a Khushrenada, not a bright young rising star like Treize Khushrenada, who was going to be a general before he was thirty and had the mind to bring war or peace with greater vengeance than any man alive. Barton could do worse for an alliance, if he was putting out feelers to ensure his own safety when the inevitable war broke out. The girl could do worse if she was looking for escape--

Treize's eyes didn't drop at all, though. 'I suppose we'll know when it's born,' he said quietly.

'Fuck, Treize. Do you really want this?'

'Her family are powerful colonials. It could be a great advantage. Either her father will accept the match, or he won't; even if he doesn't, I still have a Barton, and an heir. She's his only child. He won't disown her.'

He burned his fingers, when the last of the paper shell dissolved in flames. He flicked ash from his fingers, stared at it stark grey on his trouser leg. 'Well, that's just great. You've got it all figured out.'

Treize nodded once. Nothing ever ruffled his calm. He'd probably looked just like that when he'd heard he was a father.

'So why are you asking me to kiss you if you're about to get married?"

'Do you consider us to be committed, Zechs?'

'Don't you?'

Hurt words. He wished immediately he hadn't let them free. He shoved to his feet, but he couldn't bring himself to go far. Treize was still back there.

And still talking. Quietly, forcing him to listen. Zechs knew the trick. Treize had used it in his lectures. Even the rawest recruit listened when someone whispered, in a career where everyone else shouted.

'And how do you imagine it would affect your career,' Treize asked him, 'if our relationship were common knowledge?'

Oh, inevitable. But he'd thought there'd been a little while longer, together.

He drew a deep breath. 'They'd all think I was trying to fuck my way to the top.'

'And as soon as it was confirmed, and they would confirm it, we'd both be scrubbed out.'

'So you're sacrificing yourself on the altar of Leia Barton as-- what-- some kind of smokescreen?' He scrubbed at his face. 'You are high, Treize.'

'I am very much sober in this.' Treize was still watching him, when he managed a glance. 'It's one more amongst many advantages.'

'Best of luck then, Treize. She's a great girl.'

'Zechs.' Softly, with a tenderness he would have-- loved, ten minutes ago.

'I'm not jealous, damn it.'

'Ah. Committed indeed.'

'No, you're right. It would be a disaster. For both of us. I'm being reasonable.'

'We chose the military.'

Treize chose. Zechs followed, because he would have followed Treize to hell. He still would.

Treize finally moved. With great economy of movement, he stood, straightening his fatigues with precise little motions so studied they had become expressions of elegance, like the sweep of ginger hair from that high forehead, the uptilted chin. 'You were first,' he murmured. 'That will always mean something.'

'We're friends,' Zechs acknowledged stiffly. 'That-- won't stop.'

'I'm grateful.'

'Just don't ask me to be your best man. That's a little more grace than I can manage.'

Zechs was not a wise man, and he knew it. Treize was, and was making a stupid decision, and he was making it for them both. Logic and the soul, aligned on a course straight for disaster.

'I didn't mean that,' Zechs said, with no more air than an oxygen mask emptied in one frantic gasp.

'You spoke from the heart. I bear no resentment.'

'I promised my friendship. I'm yours, Treize. Whatever happens.'

'Thank you,' Treize answered. 'I'll leave you now, if you need it. If not...' Treize gazed off into the starry night sky, maybe imagining the girl who was going to be his wife, the baby that was going to be his baby, the blaze that was going to be the finest military career of the century.

Treize touched his hand, as he passed Zechs. Just for a moment. When he released, Zechs could still feel his warmth. He watched Treize disappear from the circle of lamplight, alone.


	13. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'I have a head booboo,' Duo announced. 'Gimme some acetaminophen.'

'You're the only person who can make big words sound ridiculous,' Wufei answered, but he obeyed, opening his right-hand drawer for access to a small bottle of capsules.

'You clearly don't follow politics.' Duo swallowed two dry. 'When's Heero get back? I thought it was yesterday.'

'Tomorrow. It's only Wednesday.'

He didn't miss the slight shift of expression. Duo was rarely off his game, and when it came it didn't take long to get back in the swing. The look was gone almost immediately, and a moment after that Wufei doubted he'd seen it at all.

'I got invited out to Davis' thing at the lake. Wondered if Heero would go with me. Guess you would do instead. Come?'

That in itself ventured beyond odd into extraordinary. Duo made no secret of the fact that he had little in common with Wufei. Wufei did not trouble to hide that this did not particularly bother him.

'As a substitute?' Wufei turned back to his computer. 'Surely you can do better.'

'That's a no, then. It's Hawaii themed.'

'What would Davis know about Hawaii?' That distracted him. 'He's never been out of the colonies.'

'Taken a look at any Earther Chinese lately?' Duo risked dismemberment by tugging Wufei's pigtail, but was quick enough to snatch his hand away before Wufei could catch it. 'There's pork and pineapple. You eat both of those things.'

'No.'

'Aw, don't be nervous. Heero wouldn't have talked to anyone either. All you have to do is stand next to me while I drink a rum runner and try not to get flirted at. Come onnnnn.'

'Whining childishly isn't going to convince me.'

'Works on Heero.' Duo nudged him broadly in the shoulder, rocking him in his chair. 'Wufei. Come onnnnn.'

 

**

 

'You should really try a rum runner.'

'No.'

Duo winked at him. 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much. You're here, aren't you?'

'And you had two pain pills not an hour ago. Give your liver a rest.'

'My liver is just fine. My head is still killing me, though. You sure those weren't expired?'

'I just bought them two weeks ago. Alcohol won't much help. It stops blood vessels from constricting. The expansion is what--'

'Causes headaches. I know. It's not about logic, Wufei, it's about being social and smiling and at least pretending to have-- Hey, Norma.' Duo went from griping to grinning as if there were no transition, and slipped an arm around their fellow agent's wife. 'I love the torches and the streamers. It's a real cute look. Where's the kids?'

'Oh, they're at my sister's. Having a little pool party of their own.' Norma bussed Duo's cheek noisily, giggling all the while. 'Don't you look handsome out of uniform! All unbuttoned, and these nice jeans.' Her hand slid visibly south down Duo's back. Wufei was a little appalled at her temerity. Duo's cheeks tinged, his eyes sliding away from Wufei's direction.

'And here I thought we were too dressy,' he said. 'Norma, you remember Wufei.'

The woman's enthusiasm waned distinctly. 'Sure. We met once. Having a good time?'

'I had been.'

'Jesus,' Duo muttered.

'It got rid of her,' he was able to say, less than a minute later.

'You ever heard of flies with honey?'

'If honey attracts flies as annoying as that, I don't see the point. They really do flirt with you.'

'Give'r a break.'

'It's not just her.' The disparity between the genders at the party suddenly sunk home. 'There's only-- seven, eight men here. Two dozen women. Why?'

'You got your head in the sand? There's a war, isn't there?'

'If that's what you want to call it,' Wufei said stiffly.

'Smells like a war and bleeds like a war. And all their husbands are out on border patrol if they're not in the hot zone.'

'And that gives them license to paw up any man who wanders too close to the web? And Norma's husband is right here!'

'I'm saying there's some things that are excusable and harmless.'

'Not harmless to the men coming back expecting their wives to have been chaste.'

'They're are, they're just-- Jesus,' Maxwell said again. 'If you hate it so much then leave.'

He was startled. 'But I drove you here,' he started, slow to be sure Duo really meant it.

But Duo did. 'I'll call a cab. Go, Wufei.'

 

**

 

'You argued with him?' Heero asked.

'You seem surprised.'

'I am. You didn't really think you would win?'

He was rapidly becoming cross. He hadn't managed to finish his morning tea and he'd been called into two unscheduled meetings that had run well into lunch. His partner's return had been-- theoretically-- something to celebrate. He was rapidly disenchanted with that prospect. 'I didn't really think it was an argument,' he retorted, and tried to refocus on the briefing report Heero had just handed him.

Heero flumped into his chair as if testing it would still hold his weight, after a seven month absence. 'I could tell,' he said sagely.

Wufei was well beyond the point of wanting to talk about Duo. The message did not quite make it to his tongue. 'How?' he heard himself ask, and sighed internally.

'He told me all the gossip about everyone but you.'

'Maybe there _is_ no gossip about me.'

'There's always gossip about everyone.'

'Heero, I'm really trying to read your report.'

That earned silence for some time. Heero spent it cleaning seven months of email from his inbox. Wufei tried to read, to focus on the details. Heero had fought in literally dozens of skirmishes, and there was valuable information in his observations, in his flight statistics, that wouldn't be there in the report of a lesser pilot.

'I'm surprised,' Heero said suddenly. 'I thought you would have marching orders by now.'

Wufei glanced up. Heero was squinting at his screen, his middle finger light as a caress on the keyboard mouse. 'You know the untold story,' Wufei answered, and dropped his eyes back to the swimming typefont. 'They don't deploy all four of us at once. Anymore.'

'I hate when you talk about it.'

That wasn't Heero. Duo had come up behind him, so silent that Wufei's instincts had never twigged. He started badly at the surprise, and his embarrassment was much compounded by Heero's smirk.

Duo did not smile. 'My head hurts again. You still got those pills?'

He fetched them mutely. Duo took two more, then dropped onto the edge of Heero's desk, his boot landing provocatively between Heero's spread legs. 'You coming for dinner tonight?'

'I can't.' Heero ignored Duo's knee in his face. 'Noin already caught me.'

'Damn it. We have a tradition.'

'She needs it more than you do.'

'Since when am I not needy? I already cooked.'

'Ask someone else.'

Wufei only had the view of Duo's back, the careless tousle of his short cinnamon hair. Duo didn't turn his head, but one shoulder hunched.

'You free?' he asked Wufei. 'It's white lasagna.'

Heero caught Wufei's gaze. His lashes dipped, just enough to be noticed, not enough to be sure what it meant.

'I thought you were angry with me,' Wufei said.

'Yesterday. You coming?'

 

**

 

It was hardly a beautiful presentation, browned cheese and sloshing white sauce making the noodles slip all over the plate, but it tasted good, and Wufei was careful to say so.

'I made it with Heero in mind,' Duo muttered, his cheeks unexpectedly red at Wufei's compliments. 'He just mucks everything up and shovels it in. It's his favourite.'

'You know he tries to spend time with Noin now.'

'Because he wants to do her.' Duo was careless of his crassness, though now it was Wufei who flushed in protest. 'He does. He never hung around her when Zechs was alive, and now he finally has a chance to horn in. Of course he's going for it.'

'I doubt either of them would appreciate that characterisation.'

'I wouldn't say it to their faces.'

'It's still not polite.'

Duo stuffed a forkful of roughage between his lips, shoving green leaves through his teeth with his fingers. 'The advantage of growing up Duo Maxwell is that no-one expects me to be polite.'

That was, actually, fairly accurate. 'You're in a mood.'

'I can't shake this damn headache.' Duo sipped his water. 'I got my transfer.'

Wufei drew in a deep breath through his nose. 'Where are they sending you?'

'C Area.' Duo drank again, swallowing until his glass was empty. 'You get yours yet?'

'Not yet.' But if Duo had, he would soon. Trowa was due back in only a week. 'Are you ready?'

'What's to be ready for? We go, we shoot when we're told to and pretend we didn't when it hits the news. A baby could do it. Babies are doing it.'

'You're hardly ancient. We aren't.'

'You're never too old to hesitate. The reasons might even be good, but you still wind up deader than soggy fries.'

That was not funny. It wasn't delivered like a joke, but it wasn't funny, and it even hurt a little. The ache wasn't old enough not to sting, yet.

He said, 'You never understood that your cynicism makes it harder for the rest of us.'

'I'm not a damn morale officer. My “cynicism” is every bit as valid as your-- whatever. Willful blindness.'

'Excuse me!'

'Sure.'

'I didn't mean--'

'I did. Go if you want to. Or stay and have a real fucking conversation for once. You've been walking away from me for two years and I'm so tired of it I could scream.'

He slammed his fork to the table. 'That is not fair, Maxwell.'

'Don't Maxwell me. Look me in the face and tell me where the hell you've been since Quatre and Zechs died.'

'Mourning them,' he snapped. 'Wishing I had been there to stop it. Wondering what went wrong, and don't tell me they _hesitated--_ '

'They hesitated because no-one upstairs is willing to give permission to really fight. They hesitated because we don't have orders, we don't have directives, and we'll keep dying until they decide whether or not this is--'

'War.'

Duo looked at him. Not angry. Strange that he wasn't. Then he was looking at his plate, cutting squares of his lasagna, and eating quietly.

'You know why none of us ever died in a Gundam?'

Wufei found his throat was too dry to swallow. 'Why.'

Duo finished his food and wiped his mouth on his napkin. 'Not because the machine was superior. Not because we were better than they were. Because we knew what we were to do, and we knew why it had to be done.'

'Not always. You're oversimplifying it.'

'That's not always a flaw. This war could use a little black and white. Life could.'

'You sound like me,' Wufei said. 'Ten years ago.'

'I sound sexier than you did.'

 

**

 

By the time Duo found him in the showers two days later, Wufei almost felt as though he were late.

'Wash your back,' Duo offered.

'I'm already done.' He was. He swung the faucet to 'off' and the spray leaked to a lukewarm stop. Duo handed him his towel, though it was well within reach on the rack, and Wufei briskly dried himself.

'I'm here to apologise.'

A missile launch would have surprised him less. 'For what?'

'Is that a genuine question or are you mocking me?'

'It's-- no. For what?'

Duo took the slack edges of terrycloth from Wufei's hands, his fingers quite delicate at it. He settled the towel around Wufei's shoulders and pinched it closed. 'Taking my shit out on you.'

It wouldn't have been a lie to say that it had been a confusing few days, yes. Or that he hadn't known a little what Duo was doing-- at least in retrospect. Mourning. Wishing.

'It only feels like there's no future because we keep repeating the present.'

'Don't fortune-cookie me.' The gripe was toothless, and so he didn't object to it. Duo let him go, and stepped back. 'I'm going out early. Oh-eight-thirty tomorrow.'

'Why?'

'They want someone on the ground working the transition. I guess the disadvantage of growing up Duo Maxwell is that someone keeps assuming I know my ass from my elbow.'

'You do.' Wufei slicked his hair back. 'Will you say good-bye to Heero?'

'He finally got laid. He hasn't left Noin's since he got back.' Duo's grimace twisted into wry acceptance. 'Tell him for me.'

'I will,' he agreed solemnly.

'Don't look so sad.' Duo shocked him-- and didn't-- leaning in to kiss him. It was gentle, but then it pressed harder and he pressed back, until it hurt just enough.

'See you in eight months,' Duo said. 'Don't be dead.'


	14. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'Why are you going to this thing again?'

'My music teacher from school is the violinist. The Chamber Music Ensemble is always composed of his best students. I played in it once, for a year.' Quatre rubbed his fingertip over the nubby edge of the tickets. 'It's a courtesy.'

'You haven't been in school since you were thirteen.'

'I donate to the school. My father went there too, when he was a child.'

Trowa was frowning. It was little more than a slight dimple between his thick eyebrows, but Quatre, so used to interpreting-- overinterpreting-- every slight expression on his face, noted it with dread.

'I don't really feel like it,' Trowa answered. 'Sorry.'

At least there was no malice in the honesty. There never was. It still hurt.

He was turning to go when a third voice suddenly spoke up. Duo. 'I'll go,' he said.

Quatre hadn't even noticed him on the couch. 'Oh, you don't have to. It's all right.'

'No, really.' Duo's head emerged from behind the tall back cushions, and he rested his chin on his arms. 'I'm not doing anything else. I can fit into Heero's suit, too, if it's fancy.'

Trowa had gone back to reading his book. If he was even still listening, there was no sign of it.

'Ehm,' Quatre said. 'Well-- I-- if you like, of course. Thank you. Yes, a suit would be good.'

'Great.' Duo smiled at him. 'And I can drive, so you can give Abdullah the night off. This'll be nice. Just the two of us and your old teacher.'

He managed, he hoped, to keep his face as pleased and pleasant as Duo's was. 'Nice,' he echoed. 'Yes it will be.'

Trowa turned a page, and propped his feet up on the stool.

 

**

 

It was as well Duo drove. Quatre found it hard to focus through the dual attempt to wallow in his disappointment and at the same time hide it entirely from his friend. It was hardly Duo's fault that Trowa had drawing away. Since the war had ended with the vivid destruction of the Libra, everything had been changing. Quatre had tried to make himself a part of the things he thought he could help with, which was ridiculously little, as it turned out, aside from numerous 'public relations' opportunities. Heero had disappeared into the ether the moment he could walk out of hospital. Wufei, they had never even seen after the final Battle. Quatre had managed to keep Trowa from hurrying off, but saw now that it was only a matter of time. He had thought-- he had imagined, at length that was now embarrassing, the long conversations they would have, the secrets they would share.

There was also the matter of his misplaced romantic ideas. He was experienced enough to know he hadn't imagined that possibility between them. And quite experienced enough to know that now, for whatever reason, that possibility was probably gone. At this point, Trowa was probably just sticking around for the food.

'We're here,' Duo said. 'Wow, this place is bigger than I thought. You know I've never been to a concert before?'

'Really?' The valet was waiting for them to abandon the car. Quatre unclipped the safety belt and let himself out. 'Never?'

'Not a lot of music on L2.' Duo fell into pace with him as they climbed the steps to the Palladium. He looked about with lively curiosity at the bright coloured banners hanging from the faux-marble columns, at the women in fine sparkling dresses and the man-sized paintings on the walls in the lobby. 'We had a piano,' he added abruptly. 'One of the sisters taught me a little. Never got tall enough to reach the pedals, though.'

Often it was difficult to remember that his friends hadn't had the same advantages he had. Duo rarely made any reference to his childhood, and Trowa was silent as the grave about such things. He wondered, suddenly, where Trowa had learnt to play the flute with such accomplishment.

They were given their programmes and led to their seats by a spruce young lady who shyly refused to raise her voice above a whisper, even when Duo teased a smile out of her. Quatre received a business call just as the ten-minute warning lights were flashed, and had to walk back to the lobby to answer it. He managed to slip back just in time for lights-down, and Duo patted his knee just as the Ensemble walked out onto the stage.

The musicians were mostly the same age as the girl who had walked them to their seats-- which was to say, probably the same age as himself and Duo. None of them looked the least bit nervous, although Quatre could well remember his own trepidation before a performance. It was interesting, that memory. It seemed so long ago. He felt a hundred years older than those students, somehow. He'd done so much since those innocent concerns had been his entire world. Relena Peacecraft was probably closeted somewhere with Romafeller's deposed and disgruntled leaders, with White Fang's remnant representatives, determining the future and fate of the Sphere. It itched that he wasn't allowed to be there. It felt entirely wrong, to be wasting his time on this ridiculous-- frivolity. A concert. As if there hadn't been a war, two months ago, as if life had never been interrupted at all, as if none of it mattered and could just be ignored if there was sufficient determination. As long as there was art, there was civilisation. Oh, he knew that attitude. Heads in the sand--

'Are you all right?' Duo whispered.

'Yes. Sorry.' He attempted a smile. He'd missed the host's introduction. They were already playing. He had to open his programme for the title.

'This one.' Duo reached over to point it out. He'd missed the entire first song, he'd been that self-absorbed. 'Duet for Two Cellos--'

'You say it “ch-ello”,' he corrected automatically, before it occurred to him that might seem condescending. But Duo only nodded peaceably and continued.

'Reinhold Gliere,' he finished. 'Is that famous?'

'Not unbelievably obscure, but no, not famous.' A woman two seats ahead with a ferociously large hat shifted, and blocked his view of the left half of the stage, including his teacher. 'Professor Ljungberg likes to show an unusual range.'

A man behind them cleared his throat warningly. Duo was silent for a few moments, then whispered, 'This is really great. It's really beautiful.'

That surprised him. He looked at Duo, really looked at him, for the first time since they'd got into the car hours ago. It wasn't so much the words, but the way Duo had said it. He was watching the stage as if he couldn't have looked away if he wanted to, but he wasn't lost to the music. There was bright concentration in his eyes, and his thumb was tapping out the beat with an unerring count.

He tried to listen to the music, after that, but found himself watching Duo out of the corner of his eyes. Duo had always let every passing emotion show on his face, and Quatre had always assumed that was something of a show, an exaggeration for the benefit of his companions. Most of the time that was probably true, but he hadn't ever caught Duo in a moment like this, in the dim with no-one-- well, almost no-one-- looking at him.

After the final set before the intermission, Duo was the first man in the room on his feet to applaud as the students rose for their bows.

 

**

 

'Professor Ljungberg taught me for seven years,' Quatre said. 'And for six of those, he perhaps didn't want to slit his wrists in despair.'

The straight-backed old man chuckled indulgently at that, and archly did not correct him. He winked instead, his hand a warm pleasant weight on Quatre's shoulder. 'I'm glad you found the time to join us tonight, Quatre. Any nostalgia for the old days? I'd have you back in a heartbeat.'

Nostalgia-- not really. He had settled some of his frustration, finally, but not the sense that there was more to his destiny than even the music he'd used to love. But to pacify his teacher, he smiled and turned to include Duo in their conversation. 'When I was eleven I informed the Professor that I intended to run away to the Conservatory in New Vienna on L1,' he told Duo. 'I was going to be the premier viola virtuoso in the universe, especially if it made my father crazy.'

Duo grinned at him. 'Too bad life got in the way. But I probably wouldn't have met you if you'd gone off to be a musician, so then I couldn't brag about knowing the premier-- what'd you call it?'

'Violist. The viola.' Quatre took him by the elbow and faced him toward the stage. 'That's the one second from the right. It looks like a violin but it's a perfect fifth below.'

'Is your friend a musician as well, Quatre?' Ljungberg asked.

'Me? No,' Duo said hastily. 'It's all totally new to me.'

'And how did you like it?'

'Brilliant,' Duo answered immediately. 'It was really brilliant, sir. Especially the Chorale.'

'Ah, the Charles Ives. Yes, a very overlooked piece. And what did you like about it?'

'Oh, don't interrogate him, sir,' Quatre began, but Duo didn't need defending. He had his reply prompt and ready.

'It was moody,' he said, and Ljungberg's eyebrows rose at the same time Quatre blinked his surprise. 'Like he didn't even like what he was writing. Like it's not finished, or... or not perfect enough for him. The whole thing made me feel-- just wrong. Like he knew there was more out there to say but he couldn't reach it.'

'Yes,' the Professor agreed slowly. 'In fact he was quite dissatisfied with it. He felt it lacked vitality. Yet you like it best?'

'It made me really feel it. The cello--' He said it right, that time. Then he hunched a shoulder, and for the first time looked uncomfortable. 'Sorry. I don't know anything about music, at all. I can barely read music. Not like Quatre here.'

Quatre recognised the look in his teacher's face, and was trying to think of a way to intervene, but he wasn't quick enough. Ljungberg jumped straight past the lead-up and straight to the offer.

'So you liked the cello,' the Professor said. 'A very noble instrument. Have you ever played one?'

'Me? God, no. I mean-- no. Sir.'

'Would you like to try? There's no time like the present.'

Duo had figured out what was happening. The face that turned to Quatre for help was equal parts appalled and desperate, but Ljungberg was in command of the helm and wasn't giving up the rein.

'David,' the old man called to the stage. 'David, a moment. This young man would like to see your cello. Let him try a few notes?'

'No, sir, please, I shouldn't-- he's got stuff to do--'

'Nonsense. It is the duty of the teacher to teach.' He steered Duo very firmly up to the stage, where the cellist met them to pull Duo up over the lip. 'The instrument chooses the player,' Ljungberg said. 'Who am I to stand in the way of fate?'

Duo twisted his head to cast Quatre a pleading look. Quatre smiled and shook his head. 'Don't break the bow,' he called out. 'Those things cost a couple thousand each.'

'Jesus freaking Christ,' he heard Duo mutter, even as David urged him into the chair and positioned the large cello between Duo's knees.

Ljungberg wandered back to Quatre once Duo was sufficiently trapped. He was quite pleased with himself, and not troubling to hide it. 'Excellent young man,' he said. 'If he liked the Ives, we have the Psalm 90 arrangement on one of our sale discs. Don't leave before I get one for you.'

'You're very kind, sir.' Duo had finally accepted that he wasn't getting out of it. His face was red-tinted as David leaned behind him to show him how to hold the cello, but fascination was starting to war with his embarrassment. He had a gentle touch, Duo, and a sure grip. He stroked the neck as if he couldn't stop himself, feeling over the pegbox and ebony studs with his eyes drooping half-closed attentively.

'I recognise him from the television,' Ljungberg said then.

Quatre looked sharply. 'He--'

But he was waved silent. 'I don't intend to say anything about it, Quatre. Of all people, I quite understand. But I do wonder how you came to know a Gundam Pilot.'

There were numerous reasons to leave it alone, to mumble something in passing and trust convention and manners to stop his old teacher from pursuing it. Later he would look back and be able to pinpoint this moment, that question, as the moment he decided to never hide his own part in the war. Just then, though, he found himself hesitating, caught between warring impulses.

Duo touched the bow to a string. He drew a clean, strong middle C. With David's murmured instruction, he extended the note into a flawless legato climb up the scale.

'Something of a natural, I think,' Ljungberg observed. 'A bit like you were. Though I did have to flog you into the viola, didn't I? I never saw a child so determined to spite the world.'

'Keep your eye on the television,' Quatre said. 'I think very soon you'll see a lot more of Gundam Pilots. We haven't finished our work, yet, after all.'

 

**

 

They were very nearly the last out of the Palladium. David stayed to talk to Duo until Ljungberg had to drag him to the van. Quatre waited from a seat on the edge of the stage, watching the building manager fold away the audience chairs and turn off the overheads. When Duo finally dropped to the ground next to him, it was well after midnight. Quatre was starting to feel the effects of a long day, but Duo was practically glowing, and his grin would not be repressed.

'I never knew music could sound like that,' he said. 'I never even knew.'

'I'm glad.' Quatre picked up the bag beside him and held it out. 'A gift from the Professor. All five of their sale albums, and a copy of a cello duet he wants you to study.'

'Study?' Duo's eyes widened. He pulled the music out to stare at it. 'Me?'

'I have a cello, you know.' Quatre picked at a hangnail he discovered. 'It's in storage, but I'll ask for it to be sent. Well, it was my sister's, but she hasn't played in a decade.'

'For me.' Duo drew a deep breath. Very carefully he returned the music to the bag. 'I don't know. I mean-- I can't just loaf around your place forever. But I appreciate the offer. You have no idea how much.'

'There's scrap in our Lagrange area, if you absolutely feel like that's what you want to do. There's the mines. You could even work for one of my competitors, or start your own business. I don't mind, whatever you want to do. But don't just up and go away.' He tugged the seam of Duo's dark trousers. 'Trowa's going to. I can tell. I don't think I'm ready to be abandoned yet. Besides, I think I'm developing some-- plans. Ideas. And I'd really like a friend to help me.'

'I won't abandon you,' Duo agreed softly. 'You planning on taking over the world, then?'

'More like... I don't just want to be a part of the destruction of the old, bad way,' he said. 'I want to be a part of making something new and better, too.'

Duo watched him, silent suddenly, and for a long minute after. Quatre dropped his eyes, at last, unsure why he felt he had to, except that he wasn't sure what he was seeing in Duo's face.

'I know you would rather have had Trowa here tonight,' Duo said. 'But tonight was really good for me. Really good. If you want me to stay, then I'm stayed.' He nudged Quatre's shoulder. 'Don't freak out, but I just want to say-- thank you.'

'Of course,' he said. 'You don't have to thank--'

Duo leaned to him, and his mouth touched lightly to Quatre's. It was just a momentary thing, over in seconds, but somehow his heart went oddly faint.

'Come on,' Duo added. 'Let's go see if the valet stole your car.'


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

You take one cripple and put him in a room with another, Duo said, chances are low you're gonna see a lot of kinetics there.

Not to say it didn't have a certain charm. Trowa, he felt, understood him, as much as one person made an effort to understand another. They were obviously physically compatible, both young, both—mechanically operational. To the extent that he ever considered the issue of emotional capability he was satisfied that there would be no lasting ill effect, and no inappropriate resulting attachment.

That, Duo would tell him, rather too late, was your first clue.

Second clue-- the first time they were intimate was in the sleeper in the truck transporting their Gundams, the day Trowa tried to kill himself. Cramped and awkward. It produced more frustration that it alleviated. Trowa said more than he meant to, obliging Heero to be selectively deaf.

Not your fault. He's taller. Hard to remember that doesn't make him older.

Again in Antarctica, Siberia, wherever they were... someplace cold. It was strange what details left him, which ones stayed. He absolutely remembered the duel, every move he'd made, the unwilling exhilaration in the realisation that Merquise was his equal match. He didn't much remember the nights with Trowa. They had fumbled, adolescent as they were, noiseless in the way that men who sleep in the midst of the enemy must be. In fact when he did think of Trowa, silence was usually the predominant memory.

Or wiser.

Duo said once that he'd read men thought of sex every seven seconds. He'd said that while they were, he and Heero and Wufei, imprisoned on the Lunar Base, passing valuable time in enforced idle. Rousing conversationalist he was, Duo had said that, every seven seconds, at which precise point the door slid open and Trowa entered; even Heero had enough humour to find that entertaining. Bright-eyed, Duo had looked up at their fourth, and added, Of course, with a uniform like that, I can't tell if I want to fuck 'im or beat 'im.

A certain shade of violence to it. Nails digging a little too hard, always, or snapping out a hand to hold down, jabbing up a knee to resist.

Cripple, Duo said with a heavy sigh, and spat to the side. I guess it's all to be expected.

He went down with exactly the same sequence of sound, when Heero hit him in the gut. Exhale. Tiny limp fwap, as he slid out of Heero's grip to the floor, senseless.

Banging on the door. Shots fired in the corridor. Trowa in a foreign wrong uniform one more time, expressionless because there was nothing inside him to be expressed, laughed, suddenly.

“I know it's not nice,” he said, as his hand landed on Heero's shoulder. “But I've been waiting two years for someone to shut him up.”

His lips brushed over Heero's, soft as a ghost's.


	16. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

They found Duo for him, more favour than they’d done for any of the thousands of ships that floated dead and silent in Space around the colony. Wufei knew better than to hail them; knew better than to think of them, or their long abandoned passengers. There was plenty to think about with the guns aimed at him. With the docking hatch bolted over crudely with titanium he had no doubt would hold long enough for them to shoot him down, if he attempted to take it in a rush. Duo might have been a good enough pilot to slip through the onslaught. He wasn’t.

They found Duo for him, and not an inch more did they give, until Duo said do it– and just like that, Wufei achieved what millions on Earth had died hoping for.

He had to float it, on a safety line from his ship with a propulsion pack tucked into his belt and his dangerously low oxygen tank flickering close to empty. There were grim-faced men waiting for him when he crawled through a just-human-sized hole between the big metal sheets covering the dock. They were skeletal, all of them, hungry, like him. They stared at him with eyes gone socket-deep, bone hands clutching crow bars and garden tools– the only weapons left that didn’t use power. From the blood visible on all of them, Wufei was sure they were well-used.

And there was Duo, the protected centre of their shield-like circle. He said, ‘Is there anyone with you?’

‘Who’s left?’ Wufei answered honestly.

L2 was silent and dark, energy frantically conserved for the circulation of oxygen and the barest hint of survivable warmth. The streets were empty, shockingly empty, after L3, where bodies were left to rot on once graceful avenues.

‘They stay in-house after curfew,’ Duo said briefly. Their steps echoed only as far as the next footfall. There was a club in his belt, and a knife in his boot, and unless he’d changed more than that there would be two more in his sleeves and a fourth at his back. Wufei did not have to ask if he’d used them. Order had never come easy to L2. With all of humanity at extinction now, hopelessness alone fuelled chaos.

‘What do you do with objectors?’ he asked.

‘Airlock.’

Wufei didn’t ask if he’d had to do that, either. There was a horrible hardness in Duo’s thin face now.

‘Trowa?’ Duo voiced into the dim light of a lamp on a wan golden glow. The lamp was a sad illumination on a rickety plastic ramp to a school. Duo opened the door with a key, an old-fashioned metal key, not the electronic bar-code that was smashed and broken so it wouldn’t drain resources. ‘Heero?’

‘Trowa went into the Mid-West to help survivors. Heero...’

‘No word.’

‘No word,’ Wufei repeated.

Anything that could burn was already stripped. Anything that could be used at all had been taken, blinds from the windows, legs from desks, books, paper from the walls. There was a family of animal skeletons scattered where they’d been cooked, perhaps as long as three years ago, when the meteor had come in-system, and transports into Space had stopped as the panic started.

‘We heard L4 went down,’ Duo said. Stairs, claustrophobically close in a universe gone too empty of what should have filled it. An office, all internal, only the one exit, more defensible even than the dock with its desperate guards and twitchy trigger fingers. All those doomed silent ships out there.

‘We couldn’t help them,’ Duo added, and for a moment Wufei thought, disoriented, that he was a mind-reader now; but he was only talking of L4. ‘A few went to help. The idealists. They sealed the dock before the Leos were even out of the green zone.’

A thin mattress in the corner. A stockpile of cans arranged as a barrier to thieves, that Duo wove between with weary practise. Wufei’s toe knocked one down, and they both flinched at the sudden tinny racket.

‘You’re the leader,’ Wufei guessed.

‘I’m what’s left,’ Duo corrected. ‘They listen, for now. Then someone else will say something else and I’ll find out what the airlock’s like from outside. It’s what I did to the one before me. Why did you come?’

‘Because I don’t accept _fate_ ,’ Wufei said, his nails painful daggers in his palms as his fists clenched. ‘Because I will not wait for my end to come to me. Earth will–‘

‘Recover,’ Duo finished. ‘Eventually. The survivors will rebuild.’

‘Yes. I believe that.’

‘With what? For who? Not for us. There’s not a man, woman, or child in Space who isn’t dead, Wufei, even if we’re still breathing.’

‘Earth will send supplies.’

‘There’s no space capability. The satellites told us that much, before we had to shut down communication. There’s no anything capability.’

‘When the bunkers open–‘

‘Wufei,’ Duo said, and he stopped, because Duo was right. The tremble in his chest that was old fury growing weak from too long without even a dream of hope was there, for a moment, pressing on his lungs, his heart. Duo’s palm on his cheek made it worse, for a moment longer.

‘I can feed you tonight,’ Duo said softly. ‘Then you have to go.’

There would be insurrection if he tried to stay. He sensed that much. And they would both die, then, Duo for allowing him on the colony, and he for asking the impossible.

A breath of air from the open door made Duo shiver. Wufei caught at his hand as it slid away, instinctive, to his club. ‘It’s only ghosts,’ he whispered.

There was no gentleness in Duo’s mouth when he pressed his own against it. But Duo’s eyes squeezed shut, and his grip on Wufei’s wrist tightened until his bones ached.

They fucked, standing because Duo wouldn’t lie down for him and Wufei didn’t expect him to. The wall was chilly under his hands, and Duo’s skin was chilly, too, his bare hips, the knobby vertebrae at the back of his neck as Wufei panted against him. It was an act without much comfort, but it brought release, at least, a tenuous almost-memory of another human body in the darkness. And Duo was still, afterward. Wufei couldn’t feel his heartbeat, until he searched for Duo’s pulse in the flutter of a vein.

‘You could come with me,’ Wufei said, or thought he said aloud. Duo’s head bowed to the wall, and Wufei shifted after him. He said it again, carefully, to be sure that Duo heard him.

‘No.’

‘Why? You’ve already given up. Why stay here?’

‘Why go?’

‘I don’t believe–‘

‘I do,’ Duo said.


	17. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Everyone was quiet, on this ship full of strangers. But Heero had heard heard her passing in the hall and followed her. So had Trowa. Heero found him standing silent as a ghost in the hangar's portal, ghostly in the shadows, too, the dim corridor lights laying like white stripes across one cheek, and darkness on the other.

'Is she injured?' Heero asked. He had-- J had told him so-- superior night vision, but the blackness in the hangar was absolute. Only Noin's whispered sigh and tiny, mouse-like noises reached them, this far away.

He saw the gleam on the white of Trowa's eye turn toward him. 'Not injured,' he said. He lifted a hand to point. 'There. He's with her.'

Still he saw nothing. But knowing what to listen for, he did. There was a male there, too. With her. And softer even than that, hidden in the waves of shuddering breaths, the sound of two bodies moving in rhythm.

He felt a flash of heat burst up his chest. An abstract kind of embarrassment for them, for the humiliation of this very obviously private act interrupted; but it was a perfunctory emotion. They did not know, and he and Trowa spoke in murmurred undertones that carried no further than their own ears.

'We ought to join them,' Trowa joked. Heero assumed it was a joke, with no tonal change to indicate the truth or falsehood of his guess.

'You've never done it,' Trowa remarked, a moment later.

'It was not part of my--'

'Training?'

'Student experience,' Heero finished, as deadpan as Trowa. The light caught on Trowa's teeth, bared briefly.

Panting. A moan so soft it was barely audible. The sound of something wet.

Heero was not naive. He knew, mechanically, the bodily function. He had never seen a naked woman in the flesh, but Duo Maxwell had bought him a magazine, while they attended the Juntao Academy in the JAP Sector. Even now, in some corner of his mind where such trivial data lay stored for future use, he remembered the hairless Japanese girls, the soft bump of their breasts and round dusky nipples, the strangely modest curve of their legs, revealing only glimpses of the vee between them. And Duo Maxwell had shown him what to do afterward, the magazine open on the bed between them, the soft slick sounds filling that room, too. He had imagined Relena Peacecraft, her exotic yellow hair on the slim Asian bodies, and, regretful after, never allowed himself to lapse like that again.

There was a sharp cry, swallowed up in the echoes of the hangar. Noin. A deep and wrenching groan. Merquise. Silence. A noise he could not identify, repeated, tender sounding.

Trowa nudged him with a bony elbow in his hip. 'Let's go,' he said.

Merquise had set aside a small closet for them, near their Gundams, but private and even defendable, if the need arose. Trowa closed their door. The darkness changed not at all, except that Trowa's face disappeared into it, now, only the sensation of his presence remaining.

'Have you kissed?' Trowa asked suddenly. He whispered the last word, incautiously. It carried on a hiss. Heero stiffened, even with the door shut.

'Yes,' he said, thinking of Duo Maxwell, and a rueful grin, a luxuriant stretch after, his penis limp over his flat belly, semen drying on his loosened fist.

'Do you know what kissing is?' Trowa qualified. It was a kindly question, patient.

Heero thought perhaps, simply from the query posed, that he indeed might not. He did not answer.

'Shall I show you?'

Makes you a man just like the rest of us, Duo Maxwell had said then. I hope you don't mind. The mag is just for you. Me, well-- looking at you was enough.

No, Heero had said, to the question asked, not the question implied. Information was information. Duo Maxwell was a good source of that, reliable and unimposing, though Heero often had to filter the extraneous in their exchanges.

I won't make you do anything, Duo Maxwell said then, and had not looked at him, had not blinked. Then, fierce and gentle at once, his voice tired and old, he said, And if anyone ever tries to, you make sure they pay for it, hear me?

'Heero?' Trowa stood close to him now. He smelled different. He smelled like body heat, and something else. He smelled tense.

'No,' Heero said, and stepped around him to his cot. 'Will they be gone from the hangar by oh-six-hundred?'

'I should imagine.' Trowa lay down as well. When he spoke again, the direction of his voice had shifted, facing the wall. 'Good night.'


	18. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

There was a certain vicious pleasure in screwing up and knowing there'd be terrible consequences. He was no less than thirty feet and a flimsy bathroom stall from his supervisor and less than that from his own desk, and his own desk meant his own partner and the threat of someone with intimate knowledge of him. It would be worse than suspension if anyone happened to walk in-- he hadn't locked the door even-- he'd be lucky not to be arrested, and he had no doubt Une would force him on a long, slow parade past the general population on his way to a prison cell, if she knew what he was doing.

He did it anyway.

Heero looked up from his computer when he got back from the loo. 'Took a while,' he said, and only said it because in the last week Duo had gone off to sit in the bathroom for hours at a time, and it had finally gone beyond polite attempts to ignore his absence.

Duo dropped into his chair. 'Yeah,' he said.

Heero was forced to look at him, and, oh, he hated having to do that, didn't he? Forced to it, he asked, 'Are you all right?' dripping reluctance, stilted as the robot he acted like, unused to forming words that sounded like caring.

Duo put his feet up on his desk and pulled his open case file into his lap. 'Just peachy,' he answered brightly, and wiped the powder residue from his nose.


	19. Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

‘Ever done it with a dead guy?’

Trowa glanced over. It was dark outside, darker inside the car, except for the ghostly green glow from the dash clock.

He shifted his hands higher on the wheel when the tyres jerked toward a gravel-filled rut. ‘That’s disgusting.’

Duo laughed, loud in blackness. ‘Dead girl?’

‘No. Of course not.’ He glanced again, at the splash of neon on Duo’s sharp chin and broad cheekbone. ‘Is this a joke? What’s the punchline.’

‘All the corpses you’ve seen in your life, you never thought—why the hell not?’

‘Seriously. This is disgusting. Cut it out.’

‘Chill,’ Duo said. He slumped lower in his seat, rested his head against the swaying safety belt. ‘Just trying to be funny.’

‘Keep trying,’ Trowa muttered. He felt cold. He turned off the AC, but then it was too still in the dim little cab. He turned it back on, but warmer, and directed the vent away from his face.

‘Left at Exit 32A,’ Duo said, then.

Duo was the one who had read the directions. Trowa slowed into the turn lane, the signal clicking softly, distractingly. He hesitated, though. It looked like a back road, one lane, heading deep into the woods they’d been skirting for miles.

‘Left,’ Duo repeated. ‘Come on, dude.’

Not even paved. They hit dirt after a hundred yards. The car bounced, and Trowa gripped the wheel hard to control it when it tugged crazily left and right.

‘You study a lot of killers, in Preventers,’ Duo said.

They’d been quiet so long that Duo’s low voice made him jump. He was embarrassed by his reaction. ‘I guess,’ he said shortly.

‘You don’t think it’s interesting?’

‘You know what I think is interesting? Sleep. Sleep, for eight whole hours, which is how much I’ll have if we get in on time. What’s the next turn?’

‘Shortcut.’ Duo’s teeth flashed in the dark. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I come out this way a lot. I know where I’m going. You guys chased after the Diablo, right? I heard he had a hit in Argentina last year.’

‘Why are you suddenly interested in the Preventers?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Where does this road go?’ He looked at Duo for as long as he dared, and had to wrestle the car back onto the path. ‘Duo, answer me.’

Duo’s hand on his cheek made him jump, and he had to wrench the wheel back where he’d turned it in shock. ‘Relax,’ Duo murmured. He stroked Trowa’s neck. ‘Pull over, if you’re having trouble. I can drive it.’

Suddenly he didn’t want to stop. There was no light anywhere beyond the range of his fog lights. The canopy of tangled branches overhead were like grasping fingers, walls of brush closing in around them to snatch at the car. He was speeding as fast as he dared, as if his foot were disconnected from his brain.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ Duo said. He sounded amused, at his ease. ‘Pull over, Trowa. I’ll drive.’

He stopped the car. There was no-where to pull over on the slender road. Twigs scraped the door when he opened it.

Duo met him in front of the hood. He put out a hand, and Trowa stopped short of touching him, tense, sweat suddenly pricking between his shoulder blades.

‘You ever wonder which one of us would win?’ Duo asked him seriously. The glare of the headlights cast half his face in shadow, and the rest of him burned brightly.

He knew. Without knowing how, he knew what that meant.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Drive, already.’

As he passed Duo, he felt fingers trail his chest. He shivered in sheer physical reaction, and faced the window when he sat in the passenger seat.


	20. Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

‘I thought you’d be taller,’ Maxwell said.

Treize smiled at that. ‘Please,’ he replied. ‘Have a seat.’ He waved to the twin of his own leather armchair, positioned ideally before the cheerful fire. Guards moved into position behind the prisoner, who shuffled forward in his chains. He sat heavily.

‘A drink?’ Treize continued. He raised his own snifter of cognac, fragrant amber liquid warming against his palm.

‘Sure,’ Maxwell said. ‘Why not.’

Treize rose to the drinks cabinet on the other side of his study. He poured a fingerlength of Louis Royer into a tulip-shaped glass. ‘I’d like to offer an apology,’ he said. He let Maxwell take the glass from his hand, and resumed his chair. ‘It’s a shame about your hair. It was very fine.’

The reddish fringe of stubble on Maxwell’s shaved head glowed as ginger as Treize’s in the firelight. Maxwell’s eyes, unimpressed, matched the thin press of his lips. He carefully lifted his cuffed hands, and sipped the alcohol.

‘How old are you now?’ Treize asked him, when the silence began to stretch.

‘I never knew how old I was to begin with.’

‘How long you’ve been in our custody, then.’

Maxwell’s bony shoulders shifted under the muddy grey of his jumpsuit. He sipped again.

‘Six years,’ Treize said. ‘Six years, seven months.’

‘No days and minutes?’

‘The world has changed during your captivity.’ Treize drank from his own glass, and set it aside. ‘The Colonies have joined the Romafeller Confederacy. We have widespread peace. A comfortable level of prosperity and growth. Our small universe is, in short, where we all have desired it to be.’

‘Enslaved?’ Maxwell swallowed the last of his cognac. His hand trembled as he lowered it, the only sign of frayed nerves and the long deprivation of his imprisonment.

Treize smiled. ‘Wilfully,’ he agreed. ‘Blindly, and ignorantly, and perhaps deservedly. Humanity, on Earth and in Space, is enslaved to the self-serving interests of a very few rich and powerful men.’ He paused, not for effect, but to think about how to continue. Of the several options he had prepared himself for, he chose the one he’d originally believed would have the least impact. ‘Perhaps you have questions for me. About your compatriots.’

‘Either they’re dead or they’re not.’ Maxwell’s voice had gone husky with maturity, a little raspy with the drink. ‘They show me pictures of executions one week, pictures of them living out in public the next. What’s the point in getting worked up about it?’

‘If I believed that, this interview would be over now.’

Maxwell was quick to seize that clue, and Treize was pleased. ‘Interview,’ he repeated.

‘Yes.’ Treize crossed his legs loosely, and pressed his hands together under his chin in an attitude of prayer. ‘I had you brought here that I might propose something to you.’

‘No.’ Maxwell glanced away. ‘Whatever you’re planning, I think I’ll pass.’

‘And spend the rest of your life in prison instead? However old you truly are, Mr Maxwell, you’re still very young. That’s a long sentence to consider.’

‘I’ve seen what happens to people who take your offers.’ Maxwell breathed silently for a time, and Treize let him. He leaned toward the fire unconsciously, a flush slowly bringing life and colour back to his pallid skin. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘Loyalty,’ Treize said softly. ‘A little loyalty, and a little patriotism.’

‘A little soul,’ Maxwell amended cynically.

‘Better to spend it while you still have some left, I think.’

It took longer than he had imagined, and that pleased him, too. When Maxwell turned purple eyes back to him, they were steady.

‘Do you have my Gundam?’ he asked.


	21. Twenty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

The blast of ordnance below shatterd his precarious balance. He went over and couldn't catch himself, though he scraped his palms raw on the lip of rough stonework as he grabbed wildly. He tucked for impact, tucked to roll and distribute the force, and caught most of it on his right shoulder and back when he hit a free-hanging catwalk of shivering steel. He blacked out and blinked on, unsure how much time had passed. He was all pulsing agony. He stared up at the cliff he'd fallen from, fifty, sixty feet above him.

Fingers pressed to his neck, then his shoulder joint. He croaked in pain.

'Dislocated.' Duo's face, blurred and dark, swam into his vision from above. His fingers traveled delicatedly down, trailing fire through Trowa's body. 'Ribs.' He touched Trowa's mouth, and showed him bloody fingertips. 'You're bleeding inside.'

'Can walk,' Trowa managed. Would have to. 'Help me.' Another explosion thundered nearby. Coming closer. And the planes, swarming near overhead in the night, their spotlights sweeping the cliffs for them.

Duo was quiet for a long time. Trowa reached with a numb hand, but lacked the strength for the distance. He weakly gripped Duo's elbow.

Then Duo removed Trowa's headset and pulled the plug from the battery pack in his jacket pocket. He leaned away. Tossed. Trowa turned his   
head to watch it sail over the bridge, over the canyon, and disappear.

Duo's lips brushed his ear, a spot of warmth when the rest of him was going cold.

He said, 'I've been waiting a long time to return this favour.'

His mouth was full of copper. He couldn't swallow all of it. 'Duo.'

Duo stood. He keyed his own headset. 'One for pickup,' he told it. Then, 'No. I'm sorry, Heero. Trowa didn't make it.'

It was all the same shock, the numbness stealing over him, and the realisation that Duo was leaving him. 'Duo. Not dying--'

'Not yet,' Duo agreed. He crouched by Trowa. 'But the bombs are getting closer. Maybe you can crawl to shelter, but I doubt it.'

He coughed, and his chest tore with the convulsion. The wet from his mouth dribbled down his chin and pooled on his throat, a faint burn. 'Why.'

'The Moon Base. The Barton Rebellion. Take your pick.' Duo glanced up as a helicopter swooped over them and banked. 'Maybe even just because of Heero,' he admitted casually. 'He was mine before you came along. Whatever it was. I don't like being left behind, Trowa. I don't reckon you will, either.' He dropped his handgun beside Trowa, not quite an arm's length away. 'Defend yourself. If you can't, you can shoot yourself before they take you.' His mouth turned up in a smile in Trowa's darkening vision. 'Or shoot me in the back. If you're fast enough.' He looked up again for the chopper, back now with a jet. Bright spotlights dragged the length of the bridge, over them, then back and held. Duo didn't say anything else. He turned and ran lightly away, and Trowa couldn't follow. He threw his arm out, screaming rawly at the pain, and palmed the gun in his good hand.

He fired.


	22. Twenty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

‘We’ve captured three of them, sir,’ Une announced triumphantly. ‘01, 02, and 04.’

‘Again?’ Treize complained. ‘I don’t even bloody want them anymore!’

‘I’m sure you don’t mean that, sir.’

‘Oh, yes, I do.’ Treize scowled at his officers. ‘They’re ruining all my plans. And they make us look like idiots! They’re just teenagers in giant robots, and they take out entire battalions of very expensive troops every time they pop up somewhere. And every time we do manage to take them into custody, they manage to escape our facilities!’

‘Don’t complain to me,’ Zechs muttered. ‘I said we ought to shoot on sight.’

‘And 02! The last time we had him, all he had to do to escape was leave his Gundam on remote pilot and tag himself with a control! We’re being defeated by the equivalent of a little boy with a toy race car!’

‘Perhaps we could dig a very deep pit,’ Zechs suggested. ‘Line it with stakes and put a tiger in it.’

‘Stop reading Swiss Family Robinson,’ Treize retorted, then paused. Then sighed. ‘No, it would never work. We’d be inundated with letters from the RSPCA.’

‘What about all those unmanned rockets from the pre-colony days? Launch them into Deep Space and let them terrorise Pluto.’

‘With the Colonies intercepting every satellite and garbage barge? We’d practically be gift-wrapping the little buggers.’

‘Swiss Family Robinson,’ Une mused. Suddenly she straightened, a gleam in her eyes. ‘Sir,’ she interrupted. ‘I have a clever plan.’

 

**

 

‘A wardrobe?’ Quatre said dubiously. ‘That’s your air-tight security?’

‘Just get in it,’ Zechs said. He opened one of the tall wooden doors, then paused. ‘You’re not by any chance familiar with English children’s literature?’

‘Do I look like a tow-headed English child to you?’ Quatre demanded, bristling. ‘I am Quatre Raberba Winner, from the ancient Berber house of–‘

‘Yes, yes,’ Zechs agreed. ‘Get in.’

 

**

 

‘Are you a Son of Adam?’ the furry man breathed in obvious excitement.

‘Zulfaqar, actually.’

‘You– what?’

‘Zulfaqar. My father’s name is Zulfaqar.’

‘Oh.’ The faun shuffled on his hoofed feet. ‘That is– well.’

‘This is a lovely forest,’ Quatre tried. ‘Very chilly.’

‘Oh, that’s because of the White Witch,’ the faun informed him quickly. ‘It’s been winter here for a very long time. Always winter, and never Christmas.’

‘Why is everyone so Anglo-centric suddenly? There are millions who don’t celebrate Christmas, you know.’

The faun was starting to look rather desperate. ‘Tea?’ he suggested.

‘We don’t exactly know each other very well,’ Quatre said.

‘It’s not often I get to make new friends. A cup of tea to celebrate the occasion?’ He glanced around them, and leant forward. ‘I’ll even break out the sardines.’

‘Sardines?’ Quatre chewed his lip. ‘Well, I suppose one cup couldn’t hurt. And loafers really aren’t appropriate snow shoes.’

‘Wonderful! Follow me, Son of– Sulfur.’

Quatre pursed his lips crossly, and slogged off through the snow after the faun.

 

**

 

‘Holy fuck,’ Duo said. Again.

‘I have completed reconnaissance of the surrounding area,’ Heero announced, returning.

‘You took a piss on that weird lantern,’ Duo retorted. ‘Inside a wardrobe. Where it’s snowing.’

‘I have completed reconnaissance,’ Heero maintained, ignoring Duo’s interruption. ‘The forest appears to reach for some distance. There is a castle to the–‘

‘Castle. In a wardrobe.’

‘I think it is possible that OZ have perfected mind-altering devices,’ Heero said thoughtfully.

‘Yeah, well, ‘step into the closet, little boy’ hasn’t been this trippy since I was nine.’ Duo unrolled his sleeves reluctantly, wrapping his arms about his chest. ‘You think we ought to act like we believe this is real? I mean, until we figure out what to do?’

‘We should approach the castle,’ Heero said in answer. ‘Once we breach the fortifications it is highly probable we will be able find some information regarding our whereabouts.’

‘I can tell you that.’ It was Quatre. He came trudging through the snow, now wearing a large furry scarf in a bright cherry red, and munching on some kind of sweet out of a handsome tin. He offered it to Duo, who stared disbelievingly at him. ‘We’re in Narnia.’

‘Your answer lacks contextualisation,’ Heero said. ‘Where did you get that scarf? And the food.’

‘Mr Tumnus.’ Quatre wiped sugar powder from his mouth fastidiously. ‘He’s a faun. I’m moderately sure he was trying to kidnap me and deliver me to the woman who runs the country. She’s some sort of dictator who took over a century ago. She sounds an awful lot like my old French tutor.’ He thoughtfully selected another sweet. ‘Anyway, I tied up the goat man and locked him in his house. He had a whole pantry of Turkish Delight. It’s not sardines, but it is awfully satisfying.’

‘Excuse me,’ Duo interrupted. ‘I’d just like to remind everyone that _this is insane._ ’

‘You are the most informed,’ Heero decided. ‘In your estimation, Quatre, what should we do now? And would you please stop eating that stuff?’

‘The Queen has a castle. Mr Tumnus was trying to convince me to go there with him.’ Quatre licked his fingers and reluctantly capped his tin of sweets. ‘Logically, we should avoid the castle.’

‘Now that’s the smartest thing I’ve heard all day,’ a new voice announced.

‘Holy fuck,’ Duo said. Again. ‘It’s a beaver. It’s a talking beaver.’

‘Wanna make something of it?’ the beaver demanded, rising up on its hind legs to glare at them.

‘Fucking Narnia,’ Duo muttered, and stole the Turkish Delight from Quatre.


	23. Twenty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'I’m dying,' Duo said.

Relena made an unladylike noise into her tea cup. 'You’re not dying.'

'Everyone’s dying. Eventually.'

'I’m not going to sleep with you.' Relena set her cup down, and brushed Duo’s hand away when it attempted to creep over hers. 'I wouldn’t sleep with you even if you were dying, which you’re not.'

'Damn, baby, that’s cold.' Duo leant back in his chair, his eyes laughing at her. 'I’m just saying, now that you and Heero are bust, it’s a great time to expand your horizons. To, you know, a real man.'

Quatre shook his head resignedly. 'Sorry,' he excused himself, and stood. 'I don’t think I can stand the rejection.'

When they were alone, Duo helped himself to Relena’s biscotti. 'I’m serious, you know,' he said.

Relena turned a page in her book. 'I thought you didn’t lie,' she teased.

'I don’t.'

She looked up. Duo was gazing back, and to her shock, he did indeed appear very serious.

'Heero was stupid to let you go,' he said. 'But I can’t say I mind very much.' He wiped his mouth, and handed back half her biscuit. 'Something else you should know about me– I don’t give up easy.'

'Duo...'

It was Duo’s turn to rise. He smiled his easy smile, a jaunty smirk lingering underneath it. 'Also, that ass is _bangin’_ , girl. Don’t let it go to waste.'


	24. Twenty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

‘Maxwell! You lost one of the new Black Hawk surveillance planes! We haven’t even admitted we had those in R and D, much less operational!’

‘”Lose” isn’t the word I would use,’ Duo started.

‘Is it or is it not a fact that a hostile government is currently dismantling my Black Hawk, due entirely to your _mistake?_ ’

‘Hey, that’s all on Engineering,’ Duo argued. ‘That Hawk was totally wacked. Operational, my ass—‘

‘You landed it behind enemy lines—‘

‘I was lucky to land that thing all!—‘

‘Where you were promptly captured, along with my Black Hawk—‘

‘Treated very nicely for a so-called hostage—‘

‘At which point you tried to convince them your navigations hard-drive was fried and you hadn’t meant to enter their air-space—‘

‘They’ve got no way of proving otherwise,’ Duo retorted.

‘Because you fried the navigations yourself!’

‘In six seconds,’ Duo said, not without a private smirk of satisfaction. ‘You should really be yelling at Engineering, not me.’

‘And to top all that off, we had to let them keep the Hawk in order to get you home.’

‘I don’t know why you want it back, anyway. It was pretty busted up, last time I saw it.’

They fell into mutual silence, each staring the other down, waiting to see who cracked first.

‘A week’s suspension without pay,’ Une decided at last, delivering her pronouncement like a whip cracking the tension apart.

Duo burst into protest. ‘For a simulation?!’

‘ _In_ the simulation, Duo, _in_ it—‘ Une stopped herself with an effort, and pressed her thumbs to her eyes. ‘Oh, forget it,’ she muttered. ‘Class, what have we learnt?’

A fresh-faced young man in the front row raised his hand eagerly.

‘Cadet Weisman,’ Une called on him.

‘Sir.’ Weisman rose on being addressed. ‘Sir, Agent Maxwell grossly violated the Code of Conduct first in entering enemy airspace—‘

‘Was pushed in by the hot pursuit on my tail feathers,’ Duo protested again, and was ignored.

‘And he abandoned classified technology in hostile territory, willingly cooperated with enemy combatants, and allowed himself to be captured,’ Weisman finished.

‘An excellent summary,’ Une said. ‘Thank you, Cadet.’

‘Sir?’ A girl two rows back raised a more tentative hand. ‘You only suspended Agent Maxwell for a week. Code of Conduct mandates at least a month, if not a court martial and dismissal.’

‘That’s true,’ Une agreed. ‘And congratulations on your very thorough familiarity with the handbook. Can anyone tell the class why I chose not to inflict the full force of disciplinary action on Agent Maxwell?’

‘Because without me, your crack force consists of Wufei?’ Duo interrupted sweetly.

A woman standing in the back of the room answered. ‘Because Agent Maxwell displayed great ingenuity during a situation that could easily have blown into an international dispute with a hostile government,’ Noin said.

‘Exactly,’ Une agreed. She shot a glance at Duo. ‘More or less,’ she added.

Weisman spoke up again. ‘But he violated treaties, he disobeyed direct orders—‘

‘He also managed to destroy any proof that he had done so deliberately,’ Noin pointed out. ‘And since the navigations hard-drive would also have contained the only proof of his point of origin, he left himself, and us, the opportunity of complete disavowal that the plane is even ours.’

‘But he cooperated,’ Weisman interjected, confused.

‘I didn’t resist,’ Duo corrected. ‘One is treasonous, and one isn’t.’

‘And a shoot-out with the pilot of a foreign surveillance plane is exactly the excuse a touchy and trigger-happy government would need to launch full-scale military action,’ Noin continued. ‘Agent Maxwell did what he could to minimise that possibility by maintaining calm, which gave us the time to negotiate for his release. Meanwhile, he was treated well, which relieves our government from the responsibility of retaliation.’

‘In short,’ Une said, ‘he acted like the kind of agent I want to keep on board.’

Duo beamed smugly in Weisman’s direction.

‘All right.’ Une stood, tugging her uniform jacket into place. ‘Now, class, let’s evaluate a rather different outcome to the same simulation. Agent Chang…’


	25. Twenty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Richard yawned as he sat up, rolling his shoulders back and then scratching his neck. ‘Alfonso and that bitch he calls a wife are leaving soon,’ he said. He’d been a fire-eater before too many years had meant too close a call with poison. You could still see the scars on his mouth from two decades of constant blisters, and you could hear it in his voice, too, rough on top of the deep rumble. Master of Ceremonies suited him better, I’d always thought, but then, I’d always been a sucker for sequined hats.

I felt too good to move, so I just kicked at the sheet until he tossed it over me. I covered my breasts and rolled onto my stomach. ‘Good riddance,’ I said tartly.

His fingers made a trail of gooseflesh up my bare spine. ‘Leaves us short a trapeze act.’

‘I don’t know, Rich... trapeze is so old-fashioned these days.’

He stood to pull on his trousers and belt them. ‘Old-fashioned is our tag-line, Cathy. If it ain’t broke, stay the hell away from it.’

I would have laughed at him, but the door came busting open, and then Trowa was standing there staring at the ringmaster like Richard had just run over a litter of newborn puppies. I sat up, pulling my night-robe from its peg nearby as Richard flushed a dark scarlet. ‘Trowa, honey, you’re letting in a draft,’ I said, securing the tie and crawling out from under the sheet. Found a tube-sock that was still holding its shape, and tossed it at Richard.

Trowa came to life stiffly, pushing the door of our trailer closed, or tried to. Someone was standing behind him, and raised their voice at being shut out. ‘What’s the problem in there?’

Richard had his shoes on now, his socks sticking out of his pockets as he shoved his arms into his coat. I looked, but couldn’t see his shirt anywhere. He kissed me quickly– on the cheek, as Trowa stared at us in betrayal– and slipped awkwardly out. The voice from outside went silent as Richard clattered down the steps and made his escape.

I tucked my legs under me. ‘You might as well come in,’ I offered gently. ‘It’s all right, Trowa.’

His name made him jump. His movements were mechanical as he came in, but his companion, the sullen little Chinese boy, seemed to have made himself scarce. I patted the bed next to me, but Trowa avoided it almost violently, taking the bench at the kitchen table opposite me. That hurt, a little. A lot. He was staring at me like he couldn’t believe what he’d seen.

I reacted wrongly, springing out of bed so fast I startled him. I wrenched the sheet and duvet back into place and stomped to our kitchen to plug in the kettle. I caught a glimpse of my hair in the little window over the sink, and caught my fingers in tangles as I tried to fix the disarray. ‘What?’ I said brusquely. ‘Never seen people having sex before?’

I regretted that as soon as I could bear to look at his face and saw him wide-eyed and pale. I poured just barely hot water into two of my mis-matched mugs and dropped tea bags into them. I sat at the table across from him, and pushed one of the mugs to him.

‘We thought you and your friend would be out longer in town,’ I said apologetically. ‘Didn’t mean for you to get an eyeful.’

Trowa’s longer fingers curled around the mug. Boy had fingers like an artist, and they always made me feel tender for him. In the circus you saw stubby fingers and callused palms, arthritic knuckles and broken veins. I was headed in that direction already.

He met my eyes suddenly, and I didn’t know what to do about the turmoil I saw deep in his eyes. He’d never looked at me like that.

‘Do you love him?’ he asked harshly, his voice deep like it would be one day, when he was a man.

I laughed a little, aloud, trying to calm him down. ‘Richard?’ I asked, as if there might be more than one possibility. ‘No, but he’s a good friend, and he has been since I came to the circus years and years ago.’ The lost look on his face got worse, and I reached for his hand, grateful he didn’t pull away. ‘Sometimes that’s enough,’ I added gently. ‘Sometimes that’s plenty.’

His gaze went to the bed, then zipped back to me like he couldn’t stand it. ‘He doesn’t...’ He hesitated for ever, but I didn’t push him. ‘Hurt you?’ he finished finally, with a hint of a threat hovering there.

‘No,’ I said firmly. I squeezed his fingers and let him go. ‘He’s a good man with no secrets.’

I don’t know why he flinched at that. He hid the hand that I’d been holding, but the other went white on the mug.

I didn’t know what else to say. He was old enough not to need a Talking To, and if he had needed it, he’d probably already had it from any number of the troupe, if he hadn’t been introduced into it by Alfonso’s daughter, the little slut; she’d had eyes for Trowa since his first day. ‘Rich is a good man,’ I repeated, unsure now. ‘It’s nothing formal, but there’s no-one else, not for him or for me, if it bothers you–’

‘He’s–’ Trowa stared down at his tea. ‘He’s so– he’s so old.’

I bit my lip to contain a laugh that would not have endeared me to this sweet little boy who was trying to brother to me. ‘He’s only thirty-nine,’ I said. ‘Not even hit the big four-oh.’ I reached for his other hand, and he let me take it. ‘And I’m no spring flower,’ I reminded him with a small smile. ‘Grease paint and a flashy smile may fool the audience, but you’ve seen me without the stage, Trowa.’

His hand tightened convulsively over mine, and suddenly he was reassuring me. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, so simply he made it sound like a universal truth. I’d been told that before, usually by young men who didn’t know better, or old men who thought flattery was better than honesty. And that’s what all the posters called me, the Beautiful Catherine Bloom, the rosy bud of youth and sunshine. But I was too familiar with the reality. The curls were a perm done out of my own sink. I knew where all the bad scars were from my old act as a trick rider, too many hard falls, the shattered right patella that had made me useless for anything other than posing in the centre ring. I saw lines where there’d only been dimples before, found grey hairs in the mirror more often than I liked. I had another ten years, maybe, before the posters changed from selling my looks to promoting my talents, unable to lie even with all the boasting charm of a famous circus.

And Trowa, bless his heart, looked me in the eye and almost made me forget all that.

My throat felt tight. I took a sip of tea, squeezed his hand one more time, and came to my feet. I smoothed the nubby satin of my old robe, then bent to kiss Trowa’s cheek, as he sometimes let me do. ‘Thank you,’ I said, returning his belief in me with all the gratitude I had to give. I cupped his cheek, and pressed my forehead to his.

I pulled away before I felt him get antsy, and concentrated on dumping my lukewarm tea down the sink. ‘Still, maybe you better start knocking,’ I told him, trying for light. ‘And I think it’s time you started shaving. You’re getting a little scratchy. We’ve already got one Bearded Woman.’

He laughed at that, in his quiet way, and I basked in his smile.


	26. Twenty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Quatre sits opposite you, his legs curled under him on the cot, tailor-style. He’s wearing a grey tee-shirt, and his arms are thin and white but oddly curved, like a girl’s arms, appealing in a way boy-arms weren’t. Weren’t supposed to be. And his hair is tousled and bleached with sun-light, and you keep thinking, incongruously, that there will be bright laughter in his eyes when you look at them.

There isn’t.

You’d screwed earlier, so hard Quatre’d hit his head on the wall, but he never complained. He couldn’t take you in on the first try, but he bit his wrist through the second and if you still couldn’t go as deep as you’d wanted, you were more afraid of him ripping himself apart for you to ravage. There’s a dark scab slowly healing where he split his lip, and the faint grey sheen in the swelling on his eye and nose. You’ve had bruises of your own, thrown about the cockpit of a Gundam at back-breaking speeds that kill lesser men. You’ve never looked like that, though, like someone beat you and left you. He does. And he doesn’t. He wears the pain indifferently, and even if he’s only pretending, it’s a good enough disguise.

Not today. Not tomorrow, either. But very soon, when the resentment that you’re already starting to feel isn’t so vague, doesn’t have this tinge of self-loathing attached.

There was a point where you could have loved him, when he smiled more. When his seriousness was balanced by his curiosity, and he’d had the passion you wanted, even if you could only get it sideways with the smell of cum.

He opens his mouth, and you breathe out. He doesn’t speak much now, and you never did, unless it was going to get you somewhere. When he does speak, he always uses words to ask how you are, in case it had changed from last time. You think you might be all that’s keeping him anchored in sanity. You wish you weren’t, because you’re already anticipating having to leave him behind. You know he doesn’t feel guilty, not about you, not about Trowa. Not about the colony he destroyed. You caught him standing in front of the electronics store two towns ago, eyes glued dully to the screen of a television showing the wreckage being brought in. And before that, you made him turn off a computer he was using to track casualty and MIA reports. But when he looks at you, you don’t see remorse. The madness of Zero is its inhumanity.

You always anticipated that you would die in this war. You’ve looked forward to it– your reward for many years of suffering and pushing and panting and prying your fingers off the butt of a smoking gun. You know what slaves are and you know you’re not one, but in a way it doesn’t matter that you’re not, because it’s close enough.

Quatre was never a slave. He was pampered, and cared for, and men die for him, not the other way around. He had everything he could ever want, except love.

You didn’t think it before, but looking at the curve of his arms, thinking of paintings you’ve never seen and soft textures you’ve never felt, you think it now. Quatre’s going to die in this war. He’s already dead. He’s drifting, somewhere, perhaps with Trowa. Floating out in Space, and cold. You think he dreams about it. You heard him call out last night, but while you lay still and staring up at the drooping ceiling of your tent, he quieted, and you didn’t go to him. But you could have. You might have, if he’d called again. And that’s enough. That’s all you’ve got to give, right now.

Anyway, he doesn’t ask for more. And though you look at the limpness of his fine, soft hair, and the slope of his neck down into the collar of his shirt, white skin on that drained grey cotton, somehow he never makes you think of ashes.


	27. Twenty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'Ten on fucking,' Trowa said.

Quatre pushed at Trowa's hand. 'Don't bet on them, it's not nice.'

'Nice is your problem. Ten.'

'I don't understand the premise,' Heero said again. He gazed suspiciously at the bottom of his beer glass. 'What was in that? Why was it called an “Irish car bomb”?'

'Why did you order it if you didn't know what was in it?' Quatre asked him, distracted for the moment. Trowa slid a banknote across the table. Stealthily, Wufei matched it. 'Fighting,' he mouthed, staring firmly at the game on the television screens over the bar.

'It's what Duo always drinks.' Heero rubbed his lips and frowned. 'Why are we betting on Duo?'

So much for distraction. Quatre noticed their bill pile, and snatched it faster than Wufei could protect it. ' _We_ are not betting,' Quatre said, frowning at them. 'It's none of our business what they do or don't do.'

Wufei sighed loudly. 'Fighting,' he said, pounding a finger into the table. 'Maxwell is a hothead and Zechs Merquise is an irascible--'

'Irascible?' Trowa repeated.

'—ego-maniacal narcissist who will not be able to resist Maxwell's taunting. The only question left is which one of them will win.'

Trowa grabbed out his wallet again. 'Ten on Duo.'

Wufei flipped a hand at him. 'Merquise has a decade of training in hand-to-hand combat. He even pilots like a fencer. Winner, you agree with me.'

'I'm not getting pulled into this!'

Trowa was already shaking his head. 'You always underestimate Duo. He's smaller and he doesn't have formal training, but he's fast and lightweight, and he knows more tricks in a knife-fight than any professional fencer.'

'Tricks, ha. Tricks is exactly what it is. Tricks do not substitute for the hard work of learning your body's capabilities, studying your opponent's form and footwork--'

Heero's frown was getting deeper. 'Did we stop betting on fighting or--'

'Fucking,' Trowa answered. 'And I'm still betting on fucking, but if they do fight, I'm betting on Duo.'

'Ten on Merquise,' Wufei said, and slapped a new note to the tabletop.

Quatre promptly picked it up. 'I'm terribly disappointed,' he told them severely, and slipped off his stool to weave through the crowd to the bar.

'I'm terribly disappointed,' Wufei mouthed at his back, and went back to the game. Trowa rolled his eyes.

'What is this one?' Merquise was asking as Quatre approached them. If Heero was confused by his drinks, Merquise looked downright upset by the experience. He also had four empty shot glasses in front of him, arranged in a careful queue.

'It's called a Purple Motherfucker.' Duo tossed his back with ease and swallowed smoothly. 'Don't think about it too much. And definitely don't try to taste it. Hey, Quat. How you guys doing back there?'

'It's getting a little stuffy.' Duo slid over a stool to make room for him; it coincidentally put him thigh-to-thigh with Merquise, who stared down at their touching legs with an indecipherable expression. Quatre stared too, then primly stopped himself, and took the offered stool. 'You two seem to be getting along just fine,' he observed.

Duo laughed brightly. 'Oh, totally. Right, Zechs? Mind if we go to first names now? You prefer Milliardo or are we still pretending he's someone else and he's dead?'

The look on Merquise's face then was quite clear in its intent. Duo only grinned. It showed an awful lot of teeth.

'Here, Quat,' Duo said then, and leant over the bar to fetch a bottle from the rack. 'Take this back there for Heero. It's just a beer. He'll like it.'

'Thank you,' he replied automatically. Merquise had started glaring down at the bar, clutching his empty shot glass so tightly his fingers had gone white. 'Um,' Quatre said then. 'So-- will you be joining us? I think we're going to go for dinner. Real food.'

'You guys go on ahead. I think we'll stick around here for a little longer.'

Trowa liked to tell him he had an interfering problem. Quatre understood what that meant for the first time. He wanted to interfere so much it made his palms itch. 'Um,' he said again. 'No, you should really come with us. Or maybe Z-- Mister Merquise is ready to go home. I can have a cab called round for him.'

Ice blue eyes confronted him suddenly. Quatre closed his mouth.

'Relax, Big Foot,' Duo told him. 'Go on ahead, Quat. I'll catch up later.'

Quatre slid off his stool. 'Well... all right. We'll see you then.'

'Yep.' Duo waved for the bartender. 'Two Cum Shots,' he ordered. 'You know what, make it four.'

Quatre hurried back to their table. 'This is for you,' he said to Heero, dropping the beer bottle into his hand. He fumbled getting into his chair, and scraped the legs on the floor loudly. Wufei turned around to look at him.

'Fighting or fucking?' Trowa asked him.

'I swear on my life, I really couldn't tell,' Quatre said.

'Then give me back my money,' Wufei demanded.

'No.'

'Why not?'

Heero sipped his beer. 'Why is this called Old Engine Oil?' He drank again, and screwed up his nose. 'Oh.'

Trowa elbowed Wufei sharply. 'Fucking!'

'What?' Wufei craned his neck. 'They could be leaving for anything. They could-- they're just going to the toilets. You can have a fight in the toilets.'

'Or they could be fucking. I'm going to go check.'

'You are not,' Quatre said crossly. 'We're going to leave them be and we're going to go get dinner. Honestly, it's like corralling cats. How would you like it if the rest of us sat here dissecting whether you two were going to fight or-- or-- you know.'

Trowa looked at Wufei. Wufei gazed consideringly back at Trowa. Heero looked at the two of them, and then he looked straight at Quatre. He tilted his head, his lower lip disappearing between his teeth as he thought his way through it.

'Hm,' he said.

Trowa raised his eyebrows. 'Huh.'

Wufei caught on. 'Oh,' he said, eyes widening as he looked back and forth between Heero and Quatre.

Quatre rubbed at a cheek gone suddenly hot. The corner of Heero's mouth turned up, just a little bit.


	28. Twenty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'This is--' Quatre's teeth-grinding was audible, his jaws hard against Trowa's shoulder. 'Humiliating.'

'It's fine.' Trowa hefted him close on his hip like a sweaty, fever-flushed sack of groceries. 'Do you need to sit?'

'I don't. I.' Quatre's ribs heaved. 'Yes.'

Trowa lowered him carefully onto the porcelain rim of the toilet. Quatre pressed his hand to his side, then threw it in a fist to rest on the sink beside him. Trowa twitched a finger, but wasn't sure what to do with it. There was a fine tremor to the lacy gold fringe of Quatre's eyelashes.

'Do you need your bandage changed?' he asked finally.

'I can't even piss on my own.' Quatre breathed. 'I'm sorry. I would-- appreciate.'

'It's fine.'

'It's not.'

'It is. You didn't ask to get stabbed by a psychotic woman.'

'She's not.'

'She literally is. You can say something nasty about the woman who almost killed you. With a sword instead of a mobile suit. You're allowed to say something nasty about people who hurt you. Specially when it's true.' Trowa went to one knee, which felt awkward, so he fumbled down onto the other one as well, with Quatre's red-rimmed eyes following every muscle. Then he was on his knees with nothing to show for it, so he was too rough in the yank he made at Quatre's wrappings, and Quatre flinched. Trowa put his hands in his pockets.

'Now who looks ridiculous.' Quatre breathed, and the fist left the sink, to brush against Trowa's jaw. 'Why are you so strange with me now. You rush to be helpful but you're terrified of breaking me.'

'I took care of Heero,' Trowa said, irrelevantly, or at least it became irrelevant when he lost the tenuous thread of sense that thought had had at its beginning. 'After he self-destructed. Even Heero needs help. Sometimes.'

'I just don't want to be a burden.'

'You should want to not be stupid.' There was lint in his pocket. He twined it around his fingertip. 'You are breakable. You do things that-- irrational things like surrender when you could win if you kept fighting for just another minute. Apologise to people who chose to try and kill you. You think you can be friends with every-- every-- one who looks at you sideways or plays the flute with you--' He heard himself stutter, and ground his own jaws together, bit his tongue until he tasted copper. 'You are breakable. Someone broke you and you don't even realise it. At least Heero knows it.'

It was so quiet in the bath, every minute sound rebounding off cold tile so that he could hear the drip in the faucet, the bob of Quatre's throat when he swallowed, the digital tick of his watch counting the passing seconds. When Quatre dropped his eyes, Trowa tucked his chin to his chest, to the weird queasy flutter of his heart.

The tape peeled slowly from Quatre's white skin, tacking to it stubbornly. The thick layers of folded gauze were only spotted with rust-coloured, drying blood, but the pus was wet still, yellow on the cotton. The puckered wound was still an angry red, the edges curled in tight with sutures, the bruise around it purple fading to green. There was a matching exit wound on Quatre's back, a precious inch from his spine, and between the two a mere handspan of torn muscle, a lacerated colic artery, a shattered kidney. And Trowa was a poor nursemaid, because Heero had been in a coma and hadn't ever complained about being handled. Quatre never complained, either, but there was a fragile grip on sanity, there, a daily battle not to give up new ground that Trowa was not helping by trying to sheepdog him into bedrest.

'Am I stupid with you?'

He taped the gauze over itself and dropped it into the waste bin. 'Yes.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Being sorry about it is what's stupid.' There should have been a nurse along to do what Trowa was doing; there would be a nurse, and Trowa would do with her what he'd done with the last dozen, glare forebodingly at them until they called security and security made him leave for the night. Trowa used a cotton swab to clean Quatre's abdomen, and Quatre leant down and put his head on Trowa's neck.

'I'm—' Trowa said, and it gummed up in his mouth, froze his tongue. 'Sorry,' he said, got it out, and was cold everywhere except where Quatre was touching him, an arm looped around his back now, fingers clenching in his teeshirt, Quatre's eyes wet against his collarbone.

'Maybe it is stupid,' Quatre whispered. 'But you always come for me. I'd rather we be stupid together.'

There wasn't anything he could say to that. At least he knew when he was done for. So he didn't sweep Quatre off his feet and carry him back to bed, he didn't order Quatre to stay there and heal, damn it, and he didn't tell Quatre that Duo was agitating to get rid of the Gundams before someone realised they still had them. He just sat there on the floor of a hospital bathroom and curled his palm over Quatre's bruised knees, and knew it.


	29. Twenty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

The braid goes slithering to the tiled bathroom floor. The only sound is the snip of the scissors. Wufei brushes loose hairs and blood away with the flat of his hand. 'Keep the compress pressed tight,' he says. He waits for Duo's nod.

He's unfamiliar with the buzzer, with the angle of the vibrating razor. His skin crawls as he sets it to his scalp, but it's fast, and he has a steady hand after the first slip. In only a dozen passes his hair lies in long shorn strands in the sink. A grim face looks back at him from the mirror, a tight pale mouth and angry eyes. Wufei draws a deep breath. Not done yet.

'Stay in here,' he tells Duo. 'I'll be back soon.'

'Shouldn't risk it,' Duo mumbles. The cotton flannel he holds to his forehead is falling. Wufei replaces it, holds Duo's hand in place until it stays.

'I'll only be a short while,' he says. 'Just stay here. Stay awake.'

The haze from the fire downtown has lit the night sky orange. Wufei hears shouting, chanting too far away to be clear words, and over that the tat-tat-tat of bullets being fired. Scattered screams follow the sub-sonic booms that shiver the pavement. They've brought out the heavy artillery. The city is going down.

The alley behind their motel is empty of anything but trash, but Wufei doesn't trust to it. He stays close to the brick facades, slinks around corners only after scanning for people. A group of students flee past, protestors driven off by the advance of troops, but they're absorbed in themselves, the girl sobbing, the boys dragging her along. Wufei lets them turn the corner before he slips out into the street. There's a pair of bins outside the convenience market, and that's where he dumps the bag of their hair, shoving it beneath rotting food and plastic wrap. The convenience itself is dark, but the window has been shattered, and the shelves immediately visible are empty, looted. Wufei checks for security cameras before he climbs in the broken window. Glass crunches beneath his feet. He goes no further than the pharmacy aisle, rips open boxes of acetaminophen and plasters, stuffs his pockets full. He leaves a banknote by the cashier, hides it under the corner of the machine; but practicality overcomes honour, and he goes back for it. They'll need every resource they have.

Duo doesn't stir when he returns to the motel, and he takes that for a bad sign. Duo is slumped by the toilet, and there's a streak of vomit. Wufei flushes it away with a tug at the pullcord, and wrestles Duo to his feet by sheer force. 'Get in the bath,' he orders. 'You can sleep when we have time.'

'Sorry.' Duo stumbles and goes down over the lip of the bath. Wufei cushions his head. 'Sorry,' Duo says again, glassy-eyed. 'What's it like out there?'

'They're getting closer, from the sound of it.' He reaches out an arm to slap on the faucet. It spits out brown for a second, then runs clear and hot. Duo is a limp rag doll as Wufei strips him. 'If they have closed the roads out, then we can't risk trying to move. Not with you in this condition. We'll be better off trying to ride it out.'

'They'll go door-to-door eventually.'

'We'll just try to ride it out.' He pours soap into his hand, and rubs it into Duo's shortened hair. 'I don't feel any skull fractures. I think it's just a concussion.'

'Okay.' Duo bends when Wufei pushes him, pliant to the rough scrub of Wufei's hand down his spine. 'What's it like out there?' he repeats. He slurs. His pupils don't seem to be the same size, but Wufei isn't sure, not in the flickering light of the bath.

Not good. Not good at all. Two known, two recognisable rebels trapped together in a grimy motel in a city that will shortly be crushed under military rule. Duo won't be able to move for days, if then. And they will go door-to-door. They know Wufei turned on them, and they know the Gundam pilots fought, too. When the raids start, it will be exponentially harder to hide. The owner of the motel will remember what they looked like before Wufei removed their most identifiable features. Their papers won't stand up to more than cursory scrutiny. They have no weapons, no money to get them, and no hope of blasting their way out past a city full of Tragos and armoured troops even if they had guns.

'You should go.'

He shoves Duo's head under the faucet, gentle only when Duo flinches. 'I didn't want to take you along in the first place.'

'So get out of here. You might be able to get out on your own.' Duo makes a clumsy bat with his hand, and Wufei covers his eyes, helps him breathe under the stream of suds. 'If you get out, you can find the others.'

If the others are even alive. He doesn't want to think it, but makes himself. There's been no word of Heero since Dekim Barton's fortress went down. No word from the Preventers who went down with Sanq. No word from Quatre or Trowa, who were defending the capitol. Duo's Gundam is nothing but wreckage, disabled by beam rifles of the endless Leos and left for lost. Altron isn't reachable. That's a black hole he can't look into, a hurt he refuses to touch. It was the only decision he could have made, the only way to put his Gundam beyond the reach of Barton's troops, but it's still a failure. One more failure.

'Wufei.'

'The bleeding has stopped, at least.' The gash at Duo's hairline is raw and bruising, but no longer seeps red, even when he pinches the edges. 'You'll live.'

'For what,' Duo says.

Wufei turns off the spigot. Duo shivers in his underwear, his eyes drooping closed. Wufei dries him with a towel, sets four plasters on his gash. He puts two capsules past Duo's lips, holds a glass of water to him until he swallows. Wufei heaves him to his feet and walks him out of the bath to the bed. They shouldn't stay, but it will be too obvious to try to find a new place now, with the battle still going on outside. He turns on the television, mutes it when Duo rolls away from the noise and bright light. There is no news, only placards or black air. It's the end of their fragile post-war civilisation. Mariemaia Barton and her grandfather may have died under Heero's attack, or may not have, but her troops don't care, and they don't stop. And Wufei helped make it so.

'Maybe I should go,' he says. His voice is dry as ash. He clears his throat, and tries again. 'Try to find the others.'

Duo is asleep. Passed out. Wufei checks his head wound, one more time, but it's fine. Duo's damp hair curls under his fingers. He's not sure Duo even knows it's gone. He hadn't asked permission.

The overhead lamp rattles, and plaster dust falls from the ceiling. The tanks are getting closer.

He pulls the duvet over Duo's body, and tries the radio instead.


	30. Thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

'I prefer to keep that curtain closed,' the client said.

'If you like.' Chris drank from the glass he'd provided her, but it was only flat water and didn't mask the drawn tension. 'You mind if I smoke?' she asked.

'If you like.' When she offered her case of fags, he declined with a tiny shake of his head. He didn't object, either, when she switched on the lamp, throwing orange glow over the closed lid of the baby grand piano. She fingered the lace cloth draped over it. It was old, stained with time and exposure to a faded yellow tinge. But it was intricate, beautiful, well-cared-for.

'My mother made it,' he said. 'She carried her bobbin everywhere, til she died. My sister Brie got it. The youngest, before me.'

'May I ask you a few questions? About the job?'

'I suppose you should, rather.' He finished his own water and poured more. The glass rotated between two fingers, turned round and round til it had arrived home again. 'I'm sorry, might I have one of your cigarettes after all?'

'You know what to do with it?' She retrieved her case from her back pocket and selected one for him, tapping it to pack the cloves. He was not practised, though he mimicked her well, putting it to his lips. She held the lighter for him. He cleared his throat, not quite a cough, at his first inhale. 'They're stronger than what you're used to,' she said diplomatically.

He gestured to the chair. Not the one beside him, the handsome leather chair with a slight bow in the cushion. Chris took the chaise lounge, perching in the middle, crossing her boots at the ankle. The twin wisps of smoke from their sticks both wound to the ceiling, disappearing in the dim.

'If you don't like to leave your home, sir, perhaps you might tell me why you need a bodyguard.'

'They come over the gate, sometimes.' He looked about for what to do with his ash, and tapped it into her waterglass. 'They take pictures of my visitors. They'll have taken your picture, on your way in.'

'Yes.'

'I can't walk the property any more. They have long lenses. They go through the rubbish bins.' He sucked at the fag, and the tip flared red. 'The house next door is empty. To be let. They climb to the roof and shout down at us.'

'You're wired pretty well. And it's illegal for them to use even an empty property that way. You can ring the police when they do that.'

'They're a nuisance, but it will end someday.' He touched his lip with a finger, to remove a bit of leaf. He wiped it slowly on his trouser leg. 'The difficulty is separating the nuisance from the danger. You'll have read the story. He was disguised as a reporter.'

Chris wet her lips. She blew smoke at the ceiling. 'I'm aware,' she said finally.

'Did you? Read the story?'

'I know it happened in a restaurant. Through the window. I know they were aiming for you.'

'It's speculation. Which of us was the target.' He tapped out the clove, this time, left it angled in the glass. He rose and crossed the room to the ceiling-height book case. His selection wasn't random, though he wondered at it, dragging his fingers over the spines before taking down a monograph. He removed a folded letter from the middle pages. His thumb caressed the paper, but he didn't unfold it. 'It's enough to hate Gundam Pilots as a general rule. No need to differentiate us.'

'They were aiming at you,' Chris said. 'You're well-known. Wealthy. You've dared to be normal, or to want to be, after what you did. He wasn't as visible. Just a way to hurt you. Mr Winner, the question I'd like to ask is why you're hiring an outsider. I understand being paranoid. I understand being worried about people with access to your home and your routine and your world. Hiring me just invites more unknown into your life.'

'You're not unknown. You came recommended.'

'By someone who is also outside your circle.'

'There's no-one inside my circle available.'

'You could have asked Preventers for protection.'

'There's a tool appropriate to every task.' He brought the book with him back to his chair, easing down. The letter settled atop the cover, precisely centred. 'Preventers carry large guns. Even if they agreed to provide protection for a private citizen--'

'Who used to be a Gundam Pilot.'

'There's still the question of effectiveness. Uniforms with big guns are a stage prop. A scarecrow in a corn field. Do you know what a scarecrow is?'

'No,' Chris admitted. 'I have a fair idea what a corn field is, at least.'

'It's a prop. A shirt and a hat stuffed with straw to look like a man. Because it appears there's a man in the corn field, the crows avoid it.'

The ash of Chris's clove fell into her palm. She grimaced at the heat, though it wasn't really pain. 'You want the opposite of a scarecrow.'

'The people who did what they did aren't crows. At least you know the crow is only after a meal.' He rested his head back. 'They waited twelve years to strike. Could've had us any time before that, but they waited their time, approached when we thought we were safe, disguised as people we'd learnt to ignore for our own peace of mind. I want someone capable of that.'

'Mr Winner.' Chris sat forward, though he only looked at her wearily. 'I can't give you any guarantees. If anyone else told you they could, or that I would, they were lying. Your safety is going to depend on a lot of factors, and uniforms with guns are a sight more useful than you seem to think.' She turned deliberate eyes to the chair beside his, the empty chair with the absence of its owner so very weighted for all it was unsaid. 'If all you want is to feel safe, uniforms with guns would be better, anyway.'

'And if anyone told you all I wanted was to feel safe, they were lying.' He let out a soft breath, and leant forward then with the glass to collect her ash. She wiped the remaining smudge on her knee, ground out the stub in her hand. 'The man you love more than all the world is murdered at your birthday dinner. Tell me what you would want.'

'I'd want to make them pay for it.' She hesitated. 'I'm not sure I entirely understand the point of this interview, Mr Winner.'

'If that's true, you may leave if you wish.'

She pulled her case from her pocket a third time. Lit a new stick for herself, drawing deeply of the rich pungent flavour, letting the smoke swirl about her mouth, through her nostrils. 'What's the letter?'

'Nothing but memories.'

'Mr Winner, I think you're better off hiring a therapist than a-- bodyguard.' She stood, to roam the room again. The garden below the window was empty but for the tender with a wheelbarrow of sod and a shovel. But just beyond the gate, the paparazzi were waiting. At the sight of her one raised his camera, and then the other two caught on and joined in. She let the curtain fall. She, too, trailed a hand over the books in the cherry wood case, head-height, finding them cool, a little dusty. There were silk flowers in the vase on the table holding the antique clock which no longer ticked away the time. The gas fireplace was cold, and didn't light when she flicked at the switch. There was a tray of half-eaten food, the only sign that the room was ever used by anyone. A sandwich missing a few half-moon bites, and a sliced pear gone brown.

'We both wrote to each other. In case of the worst.'

'If you suspected danger--'

'When we first returned to the colonies.' He touched the letter, but still didn't open it. 'We were twenty. We were-- smarter, then, maybe. I don't know when we forgot to be.' His voice trailed off, swallowing the last word.

'If I do this.' Only the top of his head was visible, as she stood behind him. It didn't turn toward her, didn't bow. 'If I come on for this, you listen to every word I say, and if I give you an order, you follow it with no questions. I'll make allowances for how you want to live your life, whether it's from this room or something a little more human than that. But I tell you run or duck or stay or freeze, you obey. Clear?'

'If you carry a weapon, we need to get you licensed here.'

'No weapons. That's tempting a confrontation we don't need.' She propped her clove between her lips and carried the sandwich plate back to the small table beside his chair. 'You forgot to finish your lunch.'

'I'm not hungry, Ms Marley.'

'And I'm not your nursemaid or your friend. But I am going to expect you to be at the top of your game, if you're going to expect the same out of me.' She laid her hand on the back of the leather chair. Winner's eyes flew tight to her fingers, but she didn't move them. 'Smart is about living your life well, Mr Winner. So that when you go, you leave someone behind who cares this deeply and misses you this much. Smart is not letting them take that away from you. I'm going to assume that letter says something along those lines.'

'If you aren't taking the job, we're at the end of our discussion.'

'I haven't decided.' She blew a stream of smoke and offered the stick to him. After a moment, he took it from her. 'Have you? Decided if this is what you really want?'

His eyes drooped closed over deep shadows. He put the fag to his mouth with a hand that shook. The other hand rested on the letter, possessive, perhaps, or just seeking purchase.

'It's forty an hour,' Winner said, almost inaudibly. 'Expenses. You can drive my car for your own needs. Any-- any exceptional-- circumstances--'

'We'll take it as it comes.' Chris retrieved the fag and put it out. 'How about I start,' she said, 'with raiding out those jerks on the lawn outside. Then I think we ought to take a nice sit outside in the garden. I think you could do with a little fresh air.' She shrugged one shoulder. 'I'll be there,' she said.

He swallowed. But when she took the letter from him to return it in the book to the shelf, he let her.


	31. Thirty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Heero refilled his tumbler at the bar, his third whiskey sour of the evening. I was on my fourth and had nothing to say about it. He slumped deep into his leather armchair, and saluted the room with his glass.

‘To peace!’ he said, tipsy, happy, proud. We were all with him, and I saw love in the faces that surrounded us.

‘Peace!’ we echoed, and when we had toasted it well, laughter resumed, animated talk.

It was Christmas Eve, and in a week we would sit in a new hotel suite not so different from this one, toasting with champagne to greet 174. To greet Colonial Independence. Disarmament.

Heero’s eyes were bright and wide when they turned to me. ‘Ah, my good doctor,’ he joked, summoning me with a wave. One of his aides vacated a chair nearby, and I drew it near Yuy, settling creaky-kneed into its cushions. Heero wore that big trustworthy smile of his, and it seemed like no effort at all to grin back.

‘We made significant progress today,’ he said jovially.

I lifted my hand in a shrug. ‘I heard a lot of pretty speeches. I didn’t hear change, my friend.’

He was already shaking his head. ‘No cynicism tonight, I’m begging you.’

I let that pass. I had a good buzz, was feeling no pain. ‘If you do your work well, I’ll be happy to give mine up.’

‘You don’t think we operate at cross-purposes? You build machines of war.’

‘I build machines. I hope they will be used wisely. I intend to see that they are.’

‘A weapon is a weapon.’

‘If a soldier breaks into my house and holds me hostage with a gun, I would wish to have one to protect myself and my family.’ I finished my beer, and gave the empty glass to the uniformed waiter who hovered nearby, waiting on the most important man the colonies had ever produced. There was a sheen of sweat on Heero’s forehead; he sat with his tie loose and the top buttons of his dress shirt popped open, a man relaxed and in the flush of life, of victory. We were the same age, he and I, but I had felt older from the moment we met. Had something to do with his optimism. And my lack of it.

‘I want a world without soldiers, Gene. A world in which you can leave your door unlocked at night and never need a weapon, even for self-defence.’

‘A world in which the colonies are sitting ducks for Alliance treachery?’ A new beer appeared at my elbow on a tray. I took it, and drained half the glass. Somewhere behind us a video broadcast raucous carol singing. The younger people in the room joined in, Heero watching with joy and pride written all over his face.

He always made me feel old.

‘The Alliance will come to understand,’ he replied belatedly. ‘You heard the Chinese today. We’re getting through, Gene. They’re hearing us, our complaints, our misgivings.’

‘They hear us as subject territories under martial law. Once we were children to them. Now we are foreigners. Off-worlders. You and I, raised without a sun over our heads, without stars to look up at. To us the moon is a rock. To them it is mythology. They say horizon, they mean astronomy, epistemology. We mean depth perception.’ A burst of laughter fell over us like a wave, and then the noise returned to its previous level. I finished my beer, and didn’t ask for another this time. I added, ‘The interface is dying. One day it will be gone and then we will have war.’

I’d put tension in his shoulders. I was sorry for that, but not sorry to shake his complacency.

Heero rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He had been born in the colonies, same as myself. Home to us wasn’t a planet, not anymore. Not in our gut, in our heart. One of a thousand concepts that had mutated on the journey into space. Whatever Home meant to us had been left behind in the steel world of horizons with positive curves, a world of internal-occupancy Bernal spheres, not surface-supportive hemispheres. And I remembered the awe on his face, the agoraphobia, the nausea, thinking about all that atmosphere above his head when we stepped off the shuttle four months ago in North America. All that ozone-blue open sky.

He said, ‘I choose not to believe that. I must choose not to believe that. If I did, I would be without hope.’ He sighed, and dropped his hand to his lap. ‘Maybe we are different from them. But we are all still human, and our common humanity binds us in purpose. We all want peace. We all want the same--the right to vote for our own government, to--make our own laws. To send our children to good schools. To find good work. We want the same liberties.’

I chuckled at that. I said, 'Liberty is being a Jew and not being put in an oven for it.' I wanted it to be a joke, to raise another grin from him. But it fell flat. Flopped out there between us. And without any mirth in his face this time he nodded slowly.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Liberty is knowing that no man will ever be able to do that to his fellow again. Liberty is respecting all life, even when it is different from yours.’

We contemplated each other for what seemed a long time. We were the same age, Heero Yuy and I. I had met him on the campus of St Francis of Assisi. He’d been carrying a picket sign and wearing a hand-painted shirt reading 'Alliance: Go Home!' He’d put pamphlets in my hands, offered very seriously to walk me through the politics. Invited me to meetings. Said he was going to Do Something About Everything That Was Wrong. That I Could Help.

I wasn’t sure about it anymore, but he made me want to believe.

I said, 'You always could sweet-talk me.'

There was the laugh I’d wanted before. He looked tired– it was nearly three in the morning– and tomorrow we moved on to Japan. Heero Yuy’s goodwill tour of the UESA nations was nearing its end. The summit planned for February would finish it. The Alliance leadership had promised real answers for the summit. Treaties. Legislation. Franchise and free trade. The man sitting across from me had worked long hours and fought hard battles and done it all because he believed.

Heero Yuy said to me, 'Gene. Promise me you’ll walk away from the Mobile Suit project. Promise me you’ll turn away from war.'

There’d been a time when he could have asked me for my first-born son and I would have signed him over without a backward glance. But we were thirty-six. And I knew in my gut that Alliance guarantees were empty, that disarmament would only weaken the colonies, that non-violence was the same as surrender. But the look on his face, the sincere faith. The bleeding heart.

Heavily I told him, 'I follow you wherever you lead. If you lead me to peace, Heero, then I promise you I will destroy the plans for the Leo myself.'

He pressed my knee with his broad palm. Our accord was silent. It was Christmas Eve, and while Earth celebrated, I sat with my friend and tried to hope as he did.

He was shot and killed in April.


	32. Thirty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

The doctor gave him twenty bucks, before they gave his bed to a kid whose leg had been shot off. For a few hot meals, if he was frugal. She looked at him, at his hair. She didn't hang around to see him leave.

The twenty got him a monorail token to West and 100, the edge of the ghetto. He wandered for a while, getting his bearings. He'd been in enough ghettos to know the lay of them-- the drug quarter, the whore quarter, and the edges where it all overlapped into the no-hope quarter.

There were two things you needed in the ghetto, and hot meals were the least of them. He used the rest of the doctor's parting gift to pay a gutter sleeper to buy him a litre bottle of Absolut. Juice was like a portable pharmacy; you could wash with it if you couldn't get soap and water, kill insects, disinfect blisters and fix earaches, relieve fever, toothaches. The only other thing you needed on the street was a knife. He knew kinds who brought guns, but if you were good with a knife you could be faster than someone who was bad with a gun, and carrying didn't mean you could aim. Knives were harder to get, though. The easy way was to trick for someone who sold. He would die before he'd do that. The harder way was to pawn for it, and that meant a lot of legwork.

The sleeper who bought him the bottle gave him a good tip. There were churches on 90th that let in homeless for the night. You had to get there by three or the queues got too long. He could probably find a rankon if he didn't get in, but he was new meat, and not even a really big knife was going to protect him in the state he was in. It meant finding something big to pawn, and doing it before three.

It meant finding a Father Ted. A fresh one, if there were any. They got picked over fast by the bos who had been around long enough to get past the squeamish. Sickos had better stuff, but he didn't like to steal from people who were still aware enough to know he was doing it. He had the nose for survival, Solo had always said, and not a lick of sense for implementing it.

 

It took him two hours, by his internal clock, to start turning up the bodies. He found a few lying next to lean-tos already taken over by new tenants, but those had mostly been there a while already and there wasn't much left but what couldn't be worn, eaten, or bartered. He struck oil when he found a row of abandoned buildings. There were a couple of kids dead in corners on the first storey, two with needles still in their arms and another with flies coming out the bullet-hole in her face. He got a wad of dot and dash off her, hidden in the sole of her shoe where her pimp wouldn't have thought to look. There were people moving around in the basement parking shelter, but it was dark enough to stay to the walls and blend with the shadows. He stayed there in the stairwell until his eyes got used to it, picking through the trash piles and the rusting cars until he had a few marks in mind, a pair of boots that weren't moving, an arm sticking out of a cardboard box. He made slow progress, not wanting to be seen, but he was good and he wasn't. It was worth the risk, anyway. The one in the box was an old lady, or had looked like one by the time she'd rotted to death out here, but women tended to keep reminders of where they'd come from, and she was no different. She had a gold locket hidden under her coat.

The manager at the pawn shop was a cheap skint bastard, but Duo walked out with an eight-inch black Concord switchblade and just enough time get in line at St Thomas Aquinas.

 

 

He wondered, sometimes, what Heero was doing. Where he was. They weren't much for news, his part of town. When he had a few quid to spare he took the rail up-town, to read the papers and watch the headlines scroll over the digiscreen in Colony Square. There was never anything about Gundams.

 

 

There weren't many places permanently safe, for a paranoid who'd just spent a month in prison awaiting execution. He didn't worry so much about people recognising him, not down here. It was still better to move on a lot, every few days. He tried to circulate the churches, but he didn't always make it in, and it wasn't a good policy to start cultivating allies-- or enemies-- in a place like this. It didn't stop offers coming in. Every world had its law and order, legit or otherwise, and it didn't take long to run afoul on someone's turf. He'd make it a few days hanging around by the whores and the clubs, but every square inch down there was run by someone who either wanted to recruit or run you off. After that he'd make rounds with the corner beggars. No-one was more invisible than a beggar. Begging didn't bring in much, though. About every week he moved on to a new spot, looking for the brown breads and taking the yields to a new pawn shop with a fresh and unsuspicious trader. It wouldn't take him long to be old news to the population of L1, specially if he kept sleeping at the churches, even trying to stay under the radar, but he was determined to manage as long as he could hold out.

He'd been on colony for almost as long as he'd spent in the clink. His bruises had disappeared, and he'd picked out the stitches in his arm and his gut when the scars closed. The clothes Heero had found for him to wear had started to show hard use, which meant it would be harder for him to fit in up-town whenever he needed to try again. If he ever needed to. There was barely a war anymore. OZ had put armed soldiers on every colony and people talked like that was a good thing. He hadn't ever much believed he was out there to save the good people of Space, but he was finding it uncomfortably easy to be bitter about their indifference. Of course OZ was carefuller than the Feddies had been. They gave candy canes to small children and condoms to school kids, walked little old ladies across the streets and encouraged people to vote. They hardly massacred anybody at all, when they weren't planning to kill a Gundam pilot on prime-time.

Eventually he fell in with the teenaged hustlers who roamed the borderlands in packs. The competitive ones fought hard for the tricks, but the rest were just there for some human company and the chance at some ciggies. There was the occasional scuffle, but he hadn't bought the knife for no reason, and they let him stand where he wanted to stand, then. The Uncle Festers pushed the line, once in a while-- not the married businessman types, but the weird scary kind who came looking for someone small to maul. He didn't like it when they went off with the little ones, the newbies who didn't know which tricks to avoid, but it wasn't an easy thing to stop and he wasn't there to be a hero for the ones who fell through the cracks. He was supposed to be falling through the cracks himself, and that was starting to look like a long-term plan, so it was double important not to fuck it up rescuing someone who didn't want his help anyway.

It was a shitty way to live.

 

 

It happened the night OZ broadcast the destruction of Deathscythe.

He'd been crying for hours. It was one thing, living with what they'd done to him in prison, the marks they'd put on him and the pain. It was another watching them do it to something he loved. He cried until he felt dizzy and his nose clogged.

And he was angry.

He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to kill everyone.

The boys were giving him a wide berth. It was a busy night, and the ones who could get away were angling for hotel rooms and those hot meals rich people always seemed to think were the deal-maker. Their corner actually cleared out, except for him. He was glad. Time came and went to get in queue for one of the churches. He didn't care. He couldn't care about anything. It was like the world had ended.

The car came idling down the street. It braked, right at his feet. The tinted window rolled down.

He stared at the face that leant out. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

The driver was wearing a uniform. OZ.

He got in the car.

 

 

The soldier had a nice pad. And a small dick.

Went to sleep after they fucked, too. Not smart. He thought about smothering him, or choking him, or using his knife to carve pieces out of him. There was benny on the bedside table, and crystal and E. Booze in the freezer. He drank half of the Jim Beam and pocketed the rest. Pocketed a gold and titanium watch, cufflinks with some kind of opal or something in the plating, and a pair of ivory chopsticks that made him think of Heero.

He turned on the soldier's computer.

Porn. You didn't get to picking up hustlers in the bad part of town if you didn't take the baby steps first. Email. He surfed for a while, reading the news. Headlines were big on what they'd done to his beautiful Deathscythe. Pictures everywhere, that he could barely stand to look at. His face was wet when he wiped his nose again.

He hacked the machine. Deep code. It wasn't hard. Military never really believed in proofing their security. If they'd hired Solo instead of poisoning him, Solo could've revolutionised programming. You couldn't hide anything from someone who knew how to read every pixel of metadata...

And find shipments of gundamium being herded through the blockade to the Lunar Base, for instance.

He turned the water heater to the highest setting and pulled the thermocoupler. A thin hiss of escaping gas and a faint smell of eggs was the only sign. If his soldier woke in time to get out of the apartment, that was fate. If it went the other way, that made it revenge, and he figured he could live with that.


	33. Thirty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

The doorbell rang.

And rang again when she didn’t move to answer it.

When it rang for the third time, Hilde was tempted to call 'No-one’s home,' but she managed to stop herself. Groaning in time with the fourth bell, she levered herself off the couch and pulled her afghan more securely about her body. She stomped to the door, and flung it open, ready to yell at the bastard who was picking on her on her day off.

She almost choked, instead.

It was the Gundam Pilot. The one from the Moon. And he was standing on her front stoop in the same sunglasses, the dark frames hiding the upper half of his face, and a ‘49ers cap was shoved low over his hair, but the instant she saw him she knew it was him.

He was holding three rolled newspapers that she’d left lying on her steps, too careless to bring them inside. He extended them to her now, and Hilde freed an arm to accept them.

'Bad timing?' he said.

The sound of his voice jolted her back to a thinking, coherent reality. One in which she remembered she’d been sleeping on the couch and hadn’t washed her hair in two days and was wearing her rattiest sleeping tee and her fuzzy rainbow socks. It was only pride that stopped her from slamming the door on him. Hilde thrust her chin in the air, defying him to be amused by her, and demanded, 'How did you find me?'

He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked casually on his heels. With those damn glasses on it was hard to read his expression, but his wide mouth was just one side of a grin. 'Followed you home,' he answered simply.

Which meant last night. Which meant he’d been watching her. 'From where?' Hilde pressed, suddenly a little afraid of him.

'The mall.' He lowered his head enough to glance at her above the rims of his lenses. 'Saw you there. Remembered you.'

Remembered her. He damn well better have. She’d stood against her own commander for him, even taking shots for him. All on a split-second judgement that he wasn’t just a pretty face. That he wasn’t lying to her. That he was a kid just like her, tired of getting screwed. Brave enough to rebel, to do the right thing for everyone. Hilde knew she wasn’t the smartest or the fastest or really the anythingest, but she had always tried to do what was right.

And there’d been something about him. Something dark, hovering just over his shoulder, making her look twice as hard, twice as deep. Something in that hint of a smirk, in his eyes when they’d been alone on the shuttle together.

They were alone now. If he’d come to kill her, he could. Women disappeared on L2 all the time. It might not even make the papers she held in her arm.

'You’re not in OZ now,' he said.

Hilde blinked. 'Drummed me out,' she replied. 'I spent two weeks in a cell because of that.'

'Are you sorry?'

Was she? The laugh busted up out of her gut and she couldn’t hold it back. 'Nah,' she said only.

He relaxed so visibly Hilde was stunned she hadn’t noticed how tense he was before. He reached up and took off his sunglasses, and stuck them on the brim of his hat. 'Saw you’re hiring at the scrap yard.'

She blinked at that. 'You know about that too?'

He hunched one shoulder in a shrug. 'When I said I followed you from the mall, I meant a couple of days ago, actually.' His eyes were a much more vivid purple than she’d remembered, and beneath the bluff there was a little-boy-uncertainty in them. 'You go there a lot,' he added. 'The mall.'

Hilde nodded. 'I sell jewellery there.'

He nodded. Then he hesitated, and then he pulled back his sleeve and showed her his left wrist. He was wearing a watch, a silver watch that was familiar. Hilde gasped, taking his hand to bring the band into the light. 'I made that!' she said. 'This is one of mine.'

'I know.' He grinned sidelong at her. 'Kinda liked it,' he offered.

'When did you buy it?' It was definitely one of her pieces, the watch band made from scrap from her grandfather’s yard, the watch face a bit of motherboard from a broken computer. And it didn’t escape her notice that his hand was a little damp, and his fingers had curled around hers, and he bit his nails.

'Wednesday, after you left.' He tugged, and she let him go, catching the edge of her afghan where it had slipped off her shoulder. 'I remembered you. I followed you, a little. And I wondered–' He stopped, and Hilde stared warily at him, waiting. 'I wondered– if– you might like a little help with the rent.'

'The rent,' Hilde said.

'Yeah.' He glanced away. 'And I can fix things. Old hand around the scrap, used to work the Sweeps. You know.'

He was asking to move in with her.

'Are you running?' she asked him soberly.

Their eyes met again. Violet, and that something was still there, banked and waiting, and ready. He only nodded.

He’d killed. She knew that. She’d grown up on L2 and there wasn’t a time she could remember where she didn’t know about death, all the things that went bump in the night, that wanted to hurt you and scare you and own you. She’d grown up on L2 where the Alliance was only your enemy if you made it past the dealer on the corner and the gangs who started battles in the school yards. When OZ had come knocking Hilde had seen a chance for out and gone for it, and if she’d realised once she was in that it was just a different kind of bully, sweet on the outside and ugly underneath, she still might be there where the food was good and the bunks were clean and you didn’t have to sleep with a shiv just to keep your next-door neighbour from slipping into your sheets; if not for this boy. Who’d looked her in the eye like that and said it ought to be better.

He’d bought her watch.

'Rent’s a hundred-fifty a month,' she said, 'and you cook every other day. How much stuff you got?'


	34. Thirty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

‘Our file on your Gundam grows daily,’ he said. He lifted a photograph and showed it to Duo; then another, and another, a dozen. He laid each of them on the table before Duo, first lining them up in a sequence, then another dozen to cover the first, then even another dozen after that. Each annotated, marked. Then came the photos from the deconstruction. They were taking Deathscythe apart, piece by piece. There were a lot of photographs of that. They hurt to see.

‘Aside from some interesting modifications, there’s little that’s terribly original about the design of your suit,’ the man said, finally running out of pictures to show Duo. He sat, and crossed his legs, resting his hands idly on the arms of his chair. ‘I find that interesting. It suggests to me that the true secret weapon of the Gundams is the pilot. You must be... unique.’

Duo said nothing. He had talked, at first. Endlessly. About anything he could think of– Earth weather systems, music he liked to listen to, a pair of shoes he’d owned and somehow lost along the way. Anything except anything that mattered. He hadn’t spoken a word in almost a week, since they’d sewed his lips closed.

The man who had never named himself sat and looked at him. They saw each other every day, often for hours at a time. A lieutenant, by his rank, on the young side of middle-aged. He didn’t do the hitting, but he let it happen, whenever they took him out of this room and back to the cell where they kept him. And when they dragged Duo back to prop him in his chair again, he was always sitting exactly as he had been. It had been bizarre at first. Duo almost looked forward to it now.

The man steepled his fingers. ‘Tell me about the priest collar,’ he said.

That was new. All the questions before had been about his Gundam or about the other pilots or the Resistance. They’d never seemed to care about Duo himself.

‘You’re too young to have been in seminary,’ the man prompted. Or mused. He seemed to be listening to Duo’s silence, his gaze still sharp as he watched Duo. ‘Perhaps you’re a fanatic? Or a cultist? But the collar, the collar now– something about that tells me you’re nothing so simply categorised. No hair shirt, no signs of self-flagellation or ritual abuse. No other implements of the faith.’ He paused. ‘We know from the trajectory that one of the Gundams came from Lagrange Point 2. A place with a significant Christian population. Of course, L1 and L3 have healthy communities of Catholicism. But perhaps this is immaterial. We’ll have forensics reports on the samples you so generously provided. Your blood. Your bone marrow. Do you know how much science can learn from even an unwilling body? Strontium in your bones... exposure to radiation... genetic drift in your DNA. We’ll know more about you than you know about yourself.’

He waited. And waited longer. They sat without any sound between them for minutes– hours? There was no way to tell. Time hadn’t existed since he’d been captured. He’d tried to count by his heartbeats in the early phase– sixty beats for a minute. The counting had taken on a nightmarish shade of obsession, dominating even the few hours he was given to sleep. He’d forced himself to stop. It didn’t matter much, anyway.

‘I believe that you are Oh-Two,’ the man said finally. ‘Shall I call you that? Oh-Two. Within the week we will have finished our examination of your Gundam. We will destroy it then. If you have not provided us with any useful information by that time, we will destroy you as well. I suggest you think very hard on how useful you would like to be to us.’

The silence was shorter this time. And at the end of it, the man said, ‘Take him away,’ and the door opened and the guards came for him.

 

**

 

He picked out the thread from his lips. In punishment, they ripped off his fingernails. It felt good to scream. But when they were done, they sewed him shut again, and this time his fingers hurt too much to pry apart the knots.

 

**

 

‘The other Gundams have gone underground,’ the man told him. There was no file today. No table either. Just their chairs, sitting in the same places, and only scuff marks on the floor to indicate what had stood between them.

‘Perhaps the Resistance have abandoned them,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, since the colonials have so clearly turned on their “liberators,” the other pilots have laid down their swords. Or perhaps you were their leader? And without you, they have no further orders?’

Duo followed the movement of the man’s fingers as they waved through the air.

‘Or perhaps,’ the man said, ‘the Gundams were only the first wave. A new weapon– a greater threat. Yes?’ He watched Duo closely, but didn’t seem satisfied. ‘Or you’ve begun recruiting on the ground. The Chinese are in revolt against the ESA. How did you communicate with them? How did they know to coordinate attacks with the arrival of the Gundams? Or are we to believe it mere coincidence that the Resistance grew on Earth at the same time as it did in the Colonies?’

He uncrossed his legs. Then he stood, and paced the room, slowly, staring at the featureless walls as if they bore a map that would tell him how to proceed. Once he had passed behind Duo, he began to speak again.

‘Do you imagine that you are the only prisoner in our hold?’ he asked softly. ‘Every question I put to you, I have put to five, ten, fifty other men and women. Some only a little older than you. Others are grandparents. And they talk, Oh-Two. They give me answers to these questions.’ He had circled the room and emerged back into Duo’s peripheral vision on the other side. ‘Answers I have trouble believing. I am a student of history. And I find it very difficult to believe that the Resistance is as disorganised as its members would have me think.’ He came to a stop at Duo’s elbow. Duo did not look up at him, though the nearness made him tense. ‘Tell me, Oh-Two,’ the man murmured above his head. ‘Tell me again that there are no cells operating independently. Tell me again that there are no codes shared between these cells which do not exist, no missions coordinated in advance.’

Duo stared down at the cuffs about his wrists, at the raw sores turning infected where the metal had rubbed too long and too often. He stared down at the angry red that tipped his fingers, at the soft tissues crusted with blood where his nails had been torn away. He stared at his bruised knees, knobby and swollen, protruding from the hem of the papery hospital gown they’d given him to replace his clothes.

The hand that touched his shoulder made him jump and gasp. The strain on the punctures in his mouth was a shock, and Duo blinked at the moisture that sprung involuntarily to his eyes. His heart raced in his chest, each thud too heavy, too sick.

‘I can save you if you tell me what I want to hear,’ the man whispered.

But Duo didn’t, and soon enough, the guards came to take him.

 

**

 

They turned off the heat in his cell. He started the count again to distract himself from the slow freezing. The brief hospital gown was no protection at all. He made it to eighty thousand before he slept, but he dreamt of screaming, and woke trying to heave from an empty stomach. His mouth was bleeding and the thread was wrapped about his fingers. He lay on his back, panting, so numb he burned, staring wide-eyed into the pitch dark and clinging to the brief pains that told him he was still alive.

 

**

 

No chairs now, and no table, only the man. The guards refastened his cuffs behind his back; they forced him to kneel, then chained the cuffs high above his shoulders. The angle put impossible pressure on his shoulders and arms. He hung his head and panted helplessly, sweat dripping from him as the pain grew. And then they left him alone, alone except for the man.

When he finally fainted, it was a relief.

The man brought him back by tossing a cup of water in his face. It was the first water he’d had in days, and despite his dizziness and disorientation Duo tried to capture some of it.

‘I do not enjoy doing this to you,’ the man said, and though Duo couldn’t raise his head to see, he knew the man was watching, because that was what the man did. He said, ‘All you need to do to stop this is tell me what I want to hear, Oh-Two.’

His lungs ached, his tongue was so dry but the water was damp all down his cheeks and he thought it might be driving him mad. He wrenched his arms, wrenched crazily until black filled his mind and stars burst in his eyes and he might have been screaming into the void of it, but then he was awake again and he couldn’t tell if any of that had been real. He was still kneeling, pain radiating from his knees as well as his back and shoulders, but his wrists had disappeared, all the way up to the elbow, his arms were just gone.

‘All you need to do to stop this is tell me what I want to hear, Oh-Two.’

Forever. And forever. Sometimes he knew he was dreaming, that he was still on Earth with Quatre and Heero, and they were going to class like normal kids did, laughing as they walked down the hall. Except– no, they’d never been all together at once, and wasn’t Heero dead? He’d self-destructed... no.

‘You would be a hero if you confessed, Oh-Two. Think of the lives you’ll save. Thousands of lives will be saved, and all for the price of just a few words.’

Sometimes he thought he was dead.

‘You’re just a child. You can’t be expected to hold out forever. There’s no shame in giving in, Oh-Two.’ Was that a hand caressing his face? Just like Sister Helen... so soft, so gentle. ‘You’ve held out for so long. But you’re tired. You ache. There’s no shame in giving in, Oh-Two, not when you’ve done so very well.’

Sister Helen plaited his hair as if he were a doll in her lap, and secretly he thought of himself like that, her doll, her beloved doll that she would never give up for all the world. It wasn’t until they sent him away for the first time that he heard the word ‘son’–

‘Oh-Two? Oh-Two, can you hear me?’

Can you remember the Lord’s Prayer, Oh-Two? No, wait, she’d never called him that, he’d had a different name then, something...

There was a gun pressed to his temple, hard and cold. ‘Tell me, Oh-Two. How many of you are there? How do you contact each other? Where are the others hiding? How do y...’

no, too hard to hear, black creeping, squirming up him, he thought he laughed–

‘Give me something, Oh-Two, give me anything and I will spare you. I will free you.’ Gun at his head and he couldn’t think, but yes he was laughing, it came spilling out of his mouth like blood and he sprayed it across the floor, bright and hard as the gun in his hair threatening him with freedom.

When he woke again, they’d let him down. He lay on the floor, but that was all right.

And there was the man.

The man sat on the floor near him, not too near. He looked at the man for a long time before he realised the man was looking back, that they’d locked eyes. But beyond the point of saying, talking, thinking. They just looked, and yet it was as if they had always known.

 

**

 

When he stopped being hungry, he knew he was close to the end. The thirst never quite went away, but it somehow ceased to matter quite so much. They kicked him in the stomach until things went crack and his body wanted to throw up, but he was so empty that after only a few spasms he was too spent for even that. They left when he stopped trying to get away.

 

**

 

For the first time, the man came to him. Duo’s little cell was barely large enough for both of them. He thought he might be a little insane now, when it pleased him to have the man in there with him. Like a friend visiting, almost. Some little glow of warmth at the end of a weird tunnel of without sensation.

‘Do you know why they choose children to fight their wars, Oh-Two?’ the man asked him.

He sat in the corner because the corner was the only thing that could hold him up. He rested his cheek against the wall. His stomach hurt, and he was tired. He didn’t have the mind left for anything else.

‘They choose children because children can’t resist. Because children can be exposed to the most grievous violence, to heinous acts of abuse, and made to perpetuate them all without understanding what they do. There may be as many as three hundred thousand children in armed combat, most of them just like you. You grow up with war. You’ve never known anything else. And maybe you’ve been told that if you fight, you’ll have a way out– or a way to get revenge. Or maybe it’s just the only way to survive. They recruit you– abduct you. Maybe they gave you drugs to make it easier. Maybe they held you down until you couldn’t cry anymore. And then they trained you, and handed you a weapon, and they sent you to Earth to kill as many as you could before we caught you and stopped you.’

He couldn’t shiver anymore. He couldn’t wrap his arms about himself. He thought his braid lay in his hands, but he couldn’t feel it to be sure.

‘Oh-Two.’ The man turned away, dragging a finger along the wall. He said, ‘Do you know what will happen to you? You’ll be forgotten. Your sacrifice. Your suffering. Already the rights groups have stopped making noise for your release. The news shows don’t run your picture anymore. And the Resistance... they won’t come for you. They’ll find another child, someone vulnerable and easy, and we’ll get them, too, and this will start all over again.’ He looked back. ‘You know I’m right, Oh-Two. Because you’re not a mindless machine. I look at you and I see a working brain, Oh-Two, I see intelligence and sympathy and an intense bravery. I see a soul.’

The sudden sound surprised him. Because it came from him. It was a gravelly sound, ragged and rusty, but he knew what it was.

The man was staring at him. Abruptly he said, ‘They’re going to execute you. It’s been set for tomorrow. They will shoot you in the back of the head as if you were a traitor.’

He was laughing.

‘Oh-Two!’ And then the man was crouching before him and his hands were gripping hard at Duo’s shoulders. ‘Damn it, boy, give me something,’ he snarled. ‘Anything! Help me save your life!’

Into the space of many heartbeats, the man let him go. Duo missed the simple human touch, but that made him want to laugh again, and he knew with sudden clarity that he was only a hair-trigger away from hysteria. This was real. This was–

He was breathing. He clutched his hair and his fingers were sharp daggers of pain, but it grounded him. He was breathing.

The man stood at the door. Watching him. Who would watch him when he was dead?

After a long time, the man asked him, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

He shook his head minutely. But it was enough. The man knocked on the door, and Duo listened to the locks being lifted.

He managed a dry swallow. ‘Yeah,’ he said suddenly. The man’s head turned toward him, and he tried to swallow again, because his throat was sore. ‘Yeah,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t– could I– I would really like to hear a Mass again... before...’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the man said.

 

**

 

They brought him back to the room where the man was. It was hard to walk, but he tried, not wanting them to carry him. The table was back, and the two chairs. Ready for the next.

The man moved, and Duo started back. There was someone with him. It took bleary eyes too long to focus, to pick out the important detail, the– collar. The stole. The man had brought him a priest.

His knees were weak suddenly, and the men who held his arms gripped tightly.

‘Leave them,’ the man said shortly, and he walked briskly to the door. ‘You have an hour,’ he added, and then they were alone in the room, Duo and the priest.

Who was looking gravely back at him, almost like the man always did. But the priest came to Duo and took hold of his hands so gently, so gently. And smiled. Duo caught his breath, staggered by that. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a smile.

‘They tell me you are the pilot of the Gundam that was captured a month ago,’ the priest said.

A month.

Duo nodded tightly. ‘Yes, Father.’

The priest began to lay the contents of his arms on the table– a Bible, a rosary. A small gold crucifix. He sighed as he traced the body of the Christ. ‘And was it worth your life?’

He felt his chin tremble just a moment before the pain hit his eyes and came out as tears. He tried to breathe through it, but it was worse torture than anything they’d done to him here. His voice emerged on a croak. ‘Yes.’

The priest caught him, and helped him down to the tiles. He didn’t release Duo then, but kept him close. He smelled like candles and incense, and Duo breathed it dizzily in, trying to remember another priest who had held him, once, with love. He pressed his face to the man’s breast, clutched his robe with aching fingers, struggling against the sobs clogging in his throat, clamouring for release.

‘We have only a short time, child,’ the priest said softly. ‘Will you confess, and be forgiven?’

‘Forgive me, Father,’ he whispered. ‘I have sinned.’ He fought to force the words out. ‘I have– killed– have hated– have–’ The priest stroked his hair, his braid. ‘–feared my death–’

He didn’t truly have much in him. He breathed. He breathed, and his head was resting on the priest’s lap, his cheek on the man’s knee while kind, kind hands stroked his hair.

‘Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,”’ the priest said. The broad palm rested over his head. ‘Pray with me.’

 

**

 

The man accompanied them back to Duo’s cell. The walk was silent this time, the guards oddly respectful. Perhaps they’d seen his final confession. Perhaps they just knew it was worthless.

At the door, the man said to him, ‘You have six hours. I will come for you. I will be there.’

‘Thank you,’ Duo replied, and meant it, strangely. But the man understood, and he nodded. His eyes were dark, and they were troubled.

He said, ‘I wish it might have been different, Oh-Two.’

Duo said, ‘I was dead the day I heard of Gundams.’

They put him back in the cell, and closed and barred the door.


	35. Thirty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

The final shock waves of the explosion passed, and the pier stopped shivering under her. Relena stared as the surface of the ocean returned to calm, climbing unsteadily to her feet.

She faced the boy in the black outfit, and found him looking at her already. ‘Aren’t you going to help him?’ Relena demanded, pointing.

The braided boy glanced over the edge of the pier, where Heero’s poor body had landed. ‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘I think he’s doing just fine on his own.’ He looked back at her, just as a new ear-splitting siren sounded, and she watched his wide mouth twist into a grimace. ‘Missy,’ he added, ‘You are I are getting out of this joint.’

‘What about Heero?’ she stalled, evading his hand as he reached for her.

‘Not much of a hero if he can’t even dodge bullets,’ the boy retorted, but the humour was back in his grin. ‘He’s wounded. They’ll probably hold him on base. There’s not much either you or I can do about that. Now, will you _please_ let me take you off this base before lots of people with guns show up?’

‘What about your machines?’ Relena hedged.

‘They can take care of themselves.’

The siren was definitely accompanied by shouting now. The explosion had been awfully close. It didn’t take much imagination to see what would happen if soldiers did find her here. At the least, she’d been reckless. At the worst, her presence here could hurt her father.

It was that more than anything that decided her. ‘All right,’ she snapped. ‘Take me out of here.’

‘As my lady commands.’ The boy slipped his gun into the back of his trousers, then stabbed at his wrist watch again. No, Relena remembered, not a wrist watch, but some kind of communicator. The sudden roar of an engine nearby made her jump, but he grabbed her by the elbows and pushed her back toward the head of the pier. She tried to get a final glimpse of Heero, and saw nothing more than a huddle slumped at the edge of the sand before the boy guided her down a rickety metal ladder, and then they were under the pier itself and close to the waves.

There was a motorcycle there. The boy had remote-started it, and it purred noisily at them as the boy brought her up to it. ‘Ever ride before?’ he asked her. Relena shook her head, and he smiled. ‘No problemo, chica. Get on the seat, and I’ll hold you from behind so you don’t fall off.’

‘I don’t have to drive it, do I?’ she gasped.

His smiled grew again until a little dimple appeared in his right cheek. Relena cursed herself for so much as noticing it, and looked stubbornly away. She hiked up her skirt and quickly, if not entirely gracefully, mounted the bike. It felt huge between her legs, warm on her calves and a little damp from sea spray on her thighs, creating patches of wet on her hose. The boy swung up behind her, settling uncomfortably close– not that there was room for them to spread out. But she gasped again when he wrapped an arm high and tight about her waist and settled his chin on her shoulder.

‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked nervously, as his forearm crushed against the bottom of her breasts.

His breath was warm and minty on her cheek. ‘Nope,’ he whispered against her ear. He gunned the engine, and it drowned out her furious retort.

He kicked down somewhere on the left, and Relena picked up her feet just in time as they sped forward, spraying sand, and zoomed out from the shelter of the pier. They shot past the chain-link perimetre of the base, sometimes skidding dangerously in the wet sand. They cut a sharp left toward a concrete ramp, and picked up speed when they were back on solid ground. The boy’s arm clenched tight around her in warning just before he braked hard and the bike fell sideways, wringing a shriek from her. To Relena it seemed they were almost horizontal, and then with a roller-coaster wrench of gravity, they were facing the other way. The rev of the bike’s engine made her realise she’d closed her eyes; she looked ahead to see men running toward the pier, but none in their direction. They had climbed during their dash to freedom, and were now on the peak of a tall hill overlooking the base.

‘I love the military,’ the boy said behind her. ‘Never look up when straight ahead will do.’

Relena swallowed convulsively when she found she had a death-tight grip on the boy’s arm. His thighs were a hot sheath about her, his heartbeat wild against her shoulderblade. She had the strangest impression he was laughing in delight, though his voice was only a lazy drawl.

She made her tongue work. ‘Do you really think they’ll care for Heero?’

‘Is that his name or his title or what?’

‘His name,’ she snapped. ‘Heero Yuy.’

‘Heero _Yuy_?’ There was a long, incredulous pause. Then the laughter was real. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he muttered, dropping his chin to her shoulder again. ‘Yeah,’ he finally answered her. ‘I think they’ll take care of him.’

‘But he’s fighting them.’

‘They don’t know that yet, I’ll wager.’ That comment was cryptic, and she didn’t understand it. She squirmed in his loosened hold until she could see his face over her shoulder. ‘Will you go back and rescue him?’ she demanded.

He wore that irritating grin. Was his face never still? ‘Missy,’ he said, ‘you’ve got some strange ideas. I shoot him for you and I’m the bad guy– but if I rescue him, you’ll be grateful?’

A flush started on her neck and worked its way up to her cheeks. ‘Yes,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘I would be grateful.’

His eyes– he had purple eyes, she realised, startled– didn’t seem nearly as amused as the rest of him. They held hers for a long time.

Then he looked away, and Relena blinked. ‘Never deny a lady what she wants,’ he said brightly, as if he’d never questioned her sanity. He winked without even looking back at her. ‘We’ll figure out what you can give me for it later.’

‘That is not the way the world works!’

‘Maybe not your world,’ he conceded. ‘But it’s certainly how mine operates.’ He resettled his arm about her waist, and she shivered as he brushed against her breasts again. ‘So where can this black knight and noble steed drop you off?’

‘My home,’ she told him, trying to sound haughty to hide the unfamiliar tingle in her abdomen. ‘It’s on the other side of the city.’

‘Of course.’ He took the time to show her how to place her feet on the ridges and whorls of the bike’s outer shell, and directed her hands to grip inside his on the handlebars so she would be better balanced. He shifted behind her, grinding for a moment against the small of her back, and Relena flushed so red she felt hot. He got the bike moving, making a wide turn and angling them toward the nearby road. ‘So... he your boyfriend, or what?’

‘I’m only fifteen!’

Somehow she knew he was laughing at her again.

‘He’s just another student,’ she tried again. ‘And why do you care so much who he is? Who are you?’

‘You can call me Duo.’

‘That’s a silly name.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He braked until they stopped, and she glanced behind her, thinking he was offended. But he was only stripping the elastic off the end of his long braid, and he held it out to her. ‘Your hair, while lovely, is going to be a little inconvenient on the highway,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she answered dumbly. She took the elastic, and pulled her hair back into a tail, wrapping the elastic several times over. He patted her leg and the bike was moving almost before she had finished, and she had to grab the handlebars quickly. He sped up as they merged, and as easy as that they were in traffic, and anything else they might have said to each other was lost in the rush of the wind.

Though the drive to the pier had seemed to take eons, the ride back to her house took little more than half an hour. She began to wonder if he would leave her on the street and disappear back to wherever he had come from, this strange boy, but he drove confidently up her main drive all the way to the gatehouse. They weren’t even stopped– when the guard saw Relena perched in front, he hurried to open the gate and let them though with a wave.

‘Your security sucks,’ the boy told her, coasting gently up the tree-lined drive. He whistled when her house came into the view, the brownstone mansion Relena had never been particularly fond of. ‘Great digs, though.’

‘Digs?’ she repeated, confused, and he chuckled low in his chest, so that her spine tingled.

He came to a halt where all the cars of her classmates were parked, leaning the bike and dropping the stand. He held her steady as she scrambled off the seat, trying not to trip and fall flat on her face in front of him. His broad, square hand lingered on her hip as she finally hopped to the cobbles.

‘Thank you,’ Relena told him, trying to regain her composure. His palm was warm and his fingers seemed very long, reaching around toward her back. She knew she should step away, but she didn’t. Long lashes, she thought, looking at him. He had long eyelashes of dark brown, and they made his eyes seem pretty, until you looked at the sharp nose and the wide mouth and remembered he was a boy. ‘Good-bye,’ she added hastily, and stepped back.

Or tried to. He only caught her wrist. ‘We haven’t talked yet about what you’re gonna give me for rescuing you and the Hero.’

His fingers wrapped all he way around her wrist and overlapped. She stared at that for a moment, then looked back at his smirking face. ‘I don’t suppose my everlasting gratitude would be enough?’ she murmured.

How he laughed at that. He threw his head back and it bubbled out of him, long and easy and young. When he stopped, Relena found herself smiling. And then, to her surprise, he let her go, and settled both hands back on the handlebars.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.’

She blushed. No-one had ever called her a woman before. She was often a young lady, and he was hardly the first to address her as Miss; but never a woman.

Then he winked at her. ‘And that whole dress-tearing thing– thanks for that.’

Her face went so hot that she had to press her palms to her cheeks.

He started the engine again, and rocked the bike back and forth a bit. ‘Stay away from Heero Yuy,’ he warned her. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in his shit, I think. It looks like you’ve got a really nice life. Try to enjoy it.’ He made a little salute with two fingers, and then the bike jumped forward. He whirled it about on the cobbles in a tight turn, and then sped off down the drive. Relena watched him go, her hands still on her cheeks, thinking about the feeling of him pressed close behind her, his hand holding her wrist as if it were a tiny, delicate thing.

She thought of Heero, and wished he would look at her like Duo had when he told her she was beautiful.


	36. Thirty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Co-written with my former writing partner, Marsh, who's since passed away, but who was always game for a bit of fun._

Heero dropped a note to Wufei’s desk as he walked past it, his eyes focused straight ahead the entire time. Wufei casually slipped the note into the crease of the folder he was reading, and when he was sure no-one was looking, he unfolded it.

It read, Meet me in the basement. Come alone.

With a carefully nonchalant expression, Wufei rose, stretched theatrically, and made for the break room, which so happened to be situated next to the lift. He glanced back to be sure no-one had noticed, and slipped quickly through the doors, pasting himself to the mirrored wall to avoid detection. He slapped the “B” button, and didn’t relax until the doors had closed behind him.

He had to wait nearly five minutes before Heero made his appearance. Wufei all but sprang on him, pulling the other Preventer behind a shelf holding cold-case files. “We’re alone,” he said.

“Then let’s get to it.”

Heero unzipped his jacket, and shrugged out of it. Wufei moved closer, rubbing his hands together briskly. “I can’t wait,” he murmured. “It’s been driving me crazy since we came back from holiday, having to look at it all day long without being able to do anything about it–“

“Are you two having sex?” Quatre demanded, suddenly appearing behind Heero.

Wufei cursed, jumping back while Heero whirled about, fumbling to draw his gun with a hand still stuck in the sleeve of his jacket. Quatre ignored that entirely, crossing his arms and grinning at both of them. “What are you _doing_ here?” Wufei demanded, his heart pounding wildly.

“Please,” Quatre said dismissively. “That little horse and pony show you put on up there isn’t fooling anyone. You’re about a subtle as– well, you’re not very subtle at all, let’s just say that.” His grin was growing. “So– are you having sex? In the basement. Very film noir.”

“We are _not_ having sex,” Heero intoned through a clenched jaw. “We are here to discuss something. Something _private_.”

A word that had no meaning to a man with twenty-nine sisters.

Wufei cut off the scowl that was forming on Heero’s face and admitted, “We can’t stand it anymore. It’s an abomination. We’ve decided to do something about it.” He couldn’t help but rub his hands again. “We’re going to cut off Duo’s beard.”

“You really don’t like it?” Quatre asked, surprised. “I think it’s sexy. Kind of makes me want to grab hold and... ahem.”

“You don’t need a handle if you’re doing it right,” Trowa said obscurely, coming up behind them.

“Oh that’s just great,” Wufei complained. “Does the entire department know we’re down here?”

“You’re not very subtle,” Trowa answered unapologetically.

“That’s what I said,” Quatre agreed.

“Can we get back to the point?” Heero interrupted. “The beard is hideous. And it’s distracting. How much hair does one person need? It has to go.”

“I’m willing to let it go until he starts catching food in it,” Trowa decided.

Wufei made a face at his taller friend. “I hope you all get fleas.”

Heero manfully tried to keep on track. “Mission parametres: secure Duo. Weapon of choice: tweasers, but given time constraints, electric razor will suffice.”

“I say cut it down to a quarter-inch and then wax it,” Wufei offered. “I can hold him that long if you have the stomach for the job.”

Quatre’s mouth turned down. “Could you leave a soul patch? Or maybe a moustache. Oooh! Definitely a moustache.”

Trowa’s eyebrows climbed. “I’ve seen pictures of your father, Quatre, and that disturbs me.”

“No moustache, no soul patch, and definitely no beard!” Wufei maintained.

“You all suck,” Quatre complained.

“And you’re being a girl,” he retorted.

“I am not! You have been so bitchy lately. Is it your time of the month or what?”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Duo said, “Why are we all in the basement?”

The other four Preventers turned to face him. Duo smiled, and lifted a finger to scratch his chin.

Wufei said, “Get him.”

A short scuffle and a few bruised knees later, Wufei had Duo in a full nelson. Both men were breathing hard, and Trowa and Quatre were gaping as Heero, ever quick on the uptake, took advantage of the moment to pull a pair of scissors from his utility pack. As he closed in, Duo’s eyes widened.

“Whoa, whoa, guys,” he said soothingly. “Let’s calm down and be logical here. We can talk it out.”

“I’m sorry, Duo,” Heero said sincerely. “But you have indicated that you are very attached to the beard you grew over the holidays. Therefore we have no choice but to make a painful decision for you.” He paused. “I’m sure you’ll thank us later,” he added.

“This is about my beard?” Duo demanded.

“Less talking, more cutting,” Wufei hinted.

“I think you’re missing a salient point here, boys,” Duo said quickly. “It’s _hair._ I _can grow it back–_ and I will. This can go on for decades.”

“Then we’ll repeat this little charade over and over until you concede defeat,” Wufei said firmly. “This is not open to negotiation. It’s for the good of the team, Duo. Do it, Yuy.”

“You do it and I tell the entire office the truth about the spandex!” Duo shouted.

Heero froze. Quatre gasped. Trowa snickered, but managed to turn it into a cough.

“Don’t be a coward, Yuy,” Wufei pressed. “Do it now!”

“Just picture it, Heero,” Duo overrode him. “Sally and Noin will know. Zechs will know. _Une_ will know.”

A fine sweat broke out on Heero’s forehead.

Duo’s voice became low and persuasive. “Or... I keep the beard... and the truth stays between you, me, and God, baby.”

“Think about the hair in the drain,” Wufei tried uselessly. “Think about being dragged to the biker bar! Think about going through life trailed by Abe Lincoln here!”

“I kind of want to know,” Quatre confessed. He tapped his lips thoughtfully. “But I also like the beard.”

Wufei threw an exasperated look at the blond man. “After we cut if off I’ll give it to you.”

Quatre’s face screwed up. “What the hell would I do with a dead beard? Make my own brillo pads?”

“You could make a hair shirt,” Trowa contributed.

“Hello, I’m a Muslim, not some medieval Christian nun!”

“Oh, and there are no Muslim martyrs? Look in a mirror once in a while.”

“Ohhhh, snap,” Duo said.

“Chang Wufei, what on earth is going on down here?”

Duo’s grin was so wide it stretched nearly ear to ear, with fine brown bristles accenting his white teeth. “Une will know,” he told Heero smugly. “Just try me.”

Director Une marched past Trowa and Quatre, who parted immediately to let her by. Wufei, caught, hesitated before releasing Duo, who immediately straightened and rolled his head and shoulders. Heero’s scissors disappeared, but a thunderous scowl came down over his face as his eyebrows slammed together.

“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!” Une complained, throwing her hands in the air. “When all five of you suddenly depart for the basement, do you honestly think you’re going to get away with whatever mischief you’re planning this time?” One by one, she glared them into submission– except Duo, who grinned back unrepentantly. “Get back upstairs,” she ordered them. “And if a single one of you goes home early today, the rest of you can stay late all week without overtime.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused, subdued.

“And Maxwell– shave that beard. It’s not regulation.”

“Sure thing,” he answered cheerfully. “May I be excused to do it now?”

“Take an extra half hour for lunch and try not to cut yourself.”

“Whatever the boss-lady says,” Duo replied brightly.

“What?” Wufei demanded. “He gets an extra half hour? And why are you giving in so easily?” he turned on Duo.

“That’s enough out of you, Chang,” Une said dangerously. “Upstairs, all of you. Now.”

Still arguing, Wufei followed Duo and Une to the lift. Shaking his head, Trowa joined them a moment later. Heero, however, didn’t move, and neither did Quatre. They stood gazing at each other, the one still glowering darkly, the other thoughtful.

“I don’t suppose–“ Quatre started.

“No,” Heero said flatly.

“I just want to know–“

Heero picked up his jacket and stomped toward the lift. “I said no.”

“I’m not going to let this go, Heero. Do you really want me to hear it from Duo?”

Heero locked his jaw, and punched the button again just to be sure the car would return for them. Quatre carefully hid his smile as he came to a halt next to Heero at the doors, and wisely didn’t add anything further.


	37. Thirty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble has been expanded into a full-length work, _Butterfly Meat_ , which will be posted and linked shortly.

Quatre's face is white. His eyes, though, his eyes are not shocked. His eyes are just old. Too old to be hurt anymore.

'How many,' he says.

Rashid's big hands touch the files with the gentleness he'd express toward the boy, if not for the table between them, the table Quatre is carefully keeping between him and anyone who might venture near. Trowa Barton is grim, shoulders bunched with tension edging closer and closer to an eruption. Heero Yuy is poker-faced, but his fists rest on the table, knuckles strained, digging into the wood.

'According to these records,' Rashid answers slowly, 'at least twelve. As many as fifteen.'

'Fifteen.' Quatre inhales sharply. He does not release the breath. He blinks, steadily, but the sudden awkward silence stretches on.

Heero breaks it. 'Do you want us to find them, Quatre?'

'Do I?' Quatre's index finger shakes. He drags the nearest file with it, loses a page. He turns it to face him. 'Do I. They were all-- all--'

Rashid doesn't know what that question is meant to be, but fills the blank with information. 'It's hard to determine from this if all of them were... activated. They may not all be your age.'

'Meaning some might be older. If my father--'

'Your parents.'

'If my father were-- perfecting this-- this-- abomination. I always thought he just wanted a boy, putting her through a decade of IVF--' Quatre's eyes just go on blinking, then, the shiver of his eyelashes like heartbeats. 'I may not be the heir.'

'You're the one he raised,' Trowa says, his first words in almost an hour.

'For whatever the bloody good that was.' Quatre looks up, then. 'Where are they.'

'I don't know,' Rashid says.

'How can we not know? The records don't-- they don't--' Quatre tears through the file, makes a grab for the others. Rashid lets them go, doesn't protest as Quatre disarranges the dossiers, paper tearing. Trowa is the one who ends it, taking him by the wrists, holding him still. Quatre's shoulders heave once. His head rests in the crook of Trowa's neck.

Heero replaces Trowa almost smoothly. He strokes a palm down Quatre's hair, murmurs something soft and private. Trowa steps back, flips about. He collates the paper, tapping it into line. Flips a page, another.

'We should find them,' he says. 'To find out what they know.'

'I can't,' Quatre whispers.

'To find out what they know about your father. To find out what they know about the tech that did this. If there are others. Quatre. To find out if the rest of your family knew, and why they never told you.'

'I can't do this.' Quatre separates with a smear of his hand across his eyes. He closes the topmost file right on Trowa's fingers. 'No. I lived without knowing this before. I choose to do nothing. Whether it's true or not. This was my father's mistake. So far as I'm concerned it dies with him.'

None of the men left behind move when the door slams closed behind Quatre. Trowa quietly lines the file to the edge of the table. Heero's head tilts after Quatre, but his shoes stay pointed toward the table, toward the strange revelations there.

Rashid says, 'We should respect his wishes.'

'Wishes aren't the same as wisdom,' Heero answers.

Trowa nods once. 'It should be me.'

'If we all agree, it should be all of us.'

'He'll hate you for it.' Trowa gathers the files, plucks the last from Rashid's hands. 'He can be angry with me without destroying his life. Keep him distracted until I phone with something.'

Rashid shifts uneasily. Heero accepts it more readily, though he, too, sucks in a deep chestful of air, and does not realease it. But he nods.

'Clones,' Trowa says, wonderment and discomfiture in one. 'You think they'll be like him?'

'We can hope,' Rashid says flatly.


	38. Thirty-Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Is it always this hot on L2?

Mostly, I replied. I think it has something to do with funding. Can't pay for upgrades in the equipment.

That's a damn shame, Howard grumped. He's in a mood today. But we're only stopped here for a little while, and he'll live. Hey, do you think we could grab a bite somewhere? I'm starving. I'm too old for this.

Too old to work on my project then, and I mean it. Just because you're tired and cranky doesn't mean I have to listen to that.

All right, all right. Where do you want to go? We haven't passed anything that looked like a rest stop.

Sign says there's a market ahead.

I'll settle for some damn air conditioned bus stop. Hey, look ahead.

I looked ahead, trying to see what he was pointing to. I heard the shouting first. It was a kid, a real shrimp of a kid, running full-tilt out of a store-front with his pockets dropping merchandise behind him.

Stop him! Damn it, someone stop him!

He came running right at us and Howard shot out an arm to nab him. I don't know what got into me, really I don't, but watching that kid run with this big grin on his face I didn't want them to catch him. I pretended to trip into Howard, and when we stumbled that little thief had just enough room to squirm through the crowd, where I'd opened up the space, and he was gone just like that. It even got quiet in his wake. Even the man who'd been robbed just grumbled and went back inside.

What'd you do that for? Howard looked at me keenly.

I shrugged. Aren't you hungry still?

 

**

 

The hotel was really cheap, really old and really smelly but it was enough for a few nights. Howard just needed enough time to go hunting around the scrap yards we'd come here for and then we'd be off. I had classes back home and papers to grade, much as I hated reading them.

It seemed L2 was too familiar with disaster to pass up an opportunity to visit it. We hadn't been there but two nights when the news was flashing all about a fire down in a bad quarter of the colony, as though the rest of the colony wasn't a bad quarter.

Anyone die? asked Howard.

Some, I told him. They say it's under control.

But? You have that look in your eye.

What look?

That look. You're going?

I was thinking about it.

Well, you're nuts. He laid down on one of the two beds and almost immediately fell asleep. The heat was good for his arthritis and thinner blood. He liked it here more than he would ever say, and he didn't really object to my going. If I go. Haven't decided yet.

But the news reports kept coming in. Death toll going higher, no trained medical assistance fast enough. I hadn't practised since I dropped out of med school but I could help. No one on a colony like this one would sue for malpractice.

I was there almost before I knew it. People were stretched out in little clumps all over the place, litter on the ground for as much help as they were getting.

Excuse me. I'm a doctor. Let me through.

The severe burns I couldn't do much for aside from cleaning what wasn't too bad and bandaging the rest, but I ran out of bandages very quickly and started using bits of people's clothing. I had a few drugs that I carried for my own use, asprin and such, and that I gave out more carefully. The people were that old hardy stock you didn't see anywhere but the poor colonies. Quiet, even the young ones. No screaming or wailing, just quiet and waiting to see if I would help them. I felt enormous respect for them.

Smoke inhalation cases I wanted to have breathe through a wet bit of shirt or something but there was no water, practically no water. A woman told me bitterly that the fire would mean water restrictions worse than what they'd endured already. But they endured. That's the kind of people we send to Space, the strong ones.

Can we get these wounded to some shelter? I asked a policeman.

Sure. But keep them away from the hazard zone. He had a burn on his face, and I gave him an asprin for it. You a doctor?

Professor, I told him. I teach.

Well, teach those arsonists to dispose of their trash before they start something like this again.

Sure, I said. Can I get help moving these wounded.

While he radioed I asked some of the colonists standing by their hurt friends and family where we could transfer the wounded to. Mostly they looked at each other and shrugged. Some volunteered to take as many as they could to their homes nearby or their shops. There was a scrap yard close, too, only a street away and though it wasn't really beyond the fire-range I gave the go-ahead to move them. The people of L2 pulled together and got organised. I admired them.

The Federation soldiers showed up much later than I thought they should have. Who the hell is running this show? they shouted, though it was quiet.

A few pointed to me. You? Greybeard, get over here.

Can I help you?

You can't have these people here.

There's no-where else. They're wounded.

What did I just tell you? Move 'em.

Is the fire defeated? I asked politely.

Yeah, those local idiots in the Department finally got it, another said. Listen, Grandfather, this place is a safety hazard. A health hazard, you understand? Gotta get these people home.

It's almost night and they're tired. A lot of them need hospitalisation.

Just move them, okay? What do you want, buses? We can get buses. Trucks.

Trucks would be better. Can we get stretchers and more water?

No more water.

Most of the night went into moving the wounded. Moved them all over the place, sent home too many who needed better care than they'd gotten. There were a few more doctors, real doctors and a couple of nurses, volunteers from the hospital who raced down for the emergency while they were off-duty. We took addresses and city-service numbers and divided them up for house calls, the best we could do. More people died.

All those quiet people limping home are getting to me, I admitted to one of the other doctors, a young woman with pretty red hair.

One day the colony will explode, and that'll be the first decent night's rest any of us lot will have gotten in our lives, she replied.

 

**

 

There's a group of us here at the church. Maybe like a hundred or two hundred.

I got a sinking feeling in my chest. That many? I might bring another doctor.

That'd be good. He hung up. The service line clicked as his image fritzed out.

Howard shook his head and tore the sheets from our beds into strips, just like I'd shown him. Where's the Federation in all this?

Standing around watching. The more people who died, the more Federation soldiers frowned and harassed the tired volunteers taking care of them. Bodies were a safety hazard.

There was talk of ejecting the bodies into Space. The mortuaries were overflowing.

Check and make sure all our asprin is in the bag, Howard.

It's there. Want me to come with you?

No. Go browse that yard up in Pieters Square. I want to leave as soon as we have what we need.

Bus ride to the church was silent.

It was overwhelming, the bodies waiting outside for the trucks with their faces covered by jackets and hats. A little sign says “Maxwell Church." Another sign made of cardboard over that said “Closed To all New casualties." I thought that was a good thing, though there were probably more wounded who could have used the help.

An old Father comes up to me. We can't accept any more, I'm terribly sorry, he tells me.

I'm a doctor, I say. I talked to someone on the service who gave me the address.

The doctor, thank God.

Can you show me where the worst are first? The ones who need immediate attention.

Again, not too much to do for the worst, except ease their pain a little. I had to be careful more than before with the asprin, because I was running low. Some were so far gone I didn't give them anything.

Pulse is erratic and the pupils are dilated, I said, fever set in and you can see here how the burn is getting this yellow pus in it. Just lie back and sleep as much as you can.

Will it scar?

Aren't you going to do more?

How come you're the only doctor?

Hours go by and without water, without water, there's very little to do. I send home as many as I can, who sometimes know help isn't coming and sometimes believe my lie and think they'll get better, if they don't die before morning. I'm appalled by the cruelty of the place. It was just a trash fire that got out of hand.

Most of all they're quiet. The only loud ones are the occasional Federation man, who pokes his head in to grouse about safety hazards. I think about shooting one, strangling one, just make them feel a little something for all the hurt and stoic people who look at them with hatred in their tired eyes.

Last room, mister.

I know you, I say surprised. The little market thief.

If I'd known about the fire I'd have stole other stuff I guess. No apologies from this one. It's a boy, a real shrimp, the hair a braid like a girl's and the eyes too big for his face. He had scabs all over his hands which didn't look like a little boy's hands, not chubby at all, and the scabs went up his arms and down his legs. You fall down a lot? I asked.

Sure, and the Feddies help me sometimes too. Suddenly he's grinning, and there's something about that grin that I fall for immediately. No apologies from this one, but no bullshit either. He was a small vigorous little guy and I was glad I'd seen him again.

Are you hurt?

Nah. I wasn't near the fire. Need me to hold that for you?

He held my bag, though it was mostly empty now after a day in the church and followed me around while I walked through the last room. Mostly these people were better off, not too bad at all actually, and I just looked at their burns and told them to be careful with them and not to stretch the healing skin too much. Go on home, I said.

Can't. Fire got it.

They're staying here for a while, the boy told me. Father Maxwell said they could and the Feddies won't come in here like they will other places.

Why is that?

'Cause if they fucked with Father Maxwell, everyone else would fuck with them.

How can they? No one's armed. There I was discussing a mass uprising against a dominant military force, but I knew he would do it. Real serious kid, a straight-shooter. He had that grin on and I liked it. He was all tough meat.

If the church isn't safe then no one's safe. I could steal a mobile suit. I could fly it right into the middle of 'em and they'd never know what hit 'em.

You'd have to kill them.

That'd be a bonus, then.

The old Father found me again, and he offered me a meal out of the way of most of the people, up in the wings behind the organ. It was good food. I ate heartily. A nun took my plates and the kid gave me a beer.

What's your name?

Duo.

That's a funny name.

So? What's yours?

Just call me Professor.

Professor. Hey, Professor, can you do anything about this? He pulled his shirt off over his head and presented his back to me. There were big lumpy knots moving away from his spine at a perpendicular, almost covered over by streaks of dirt and grime. I felt them carefully but he didn't make any noise.

How'd you get that?

I fell I think. It was a while ago. I just noticed it.

Got any clue at all? The lumps were hard as little pebbles in his back but they didn't seem to be causing him any pain, except when I pressed down on them. There was a sticky patch on his skin, but probably it was just sweat. It was awfully hot in the organ loft.

Sister Helen thinks maybe it's an infection.

Did you see a doctor?

There's a nurse up at the school but I don't like her.

Why not? I had him breathe for me while I pressed my ear up against his back. Bellows for lungs, real healthy and strong.

He put his shirt on again. Usually when I go in it's 'cause I hit someone. She thinks I'm a trouble maker and anyway, it would go on my record and I don't want anyone thinking that I'm a baby and I have to go the clinic all the time to get my boo-boos kissed.

Did she see the lumps?

No.

They might be an infection, I tell him, though I don't think they are. Or bug bites. I can give you the names of some medicines. Go in and see the nurse and ask her if she can get you a prescription for them.

Aw, I don't care that much. Forget it.

Does your school have insurance? You wouldn't have to pay for the medicines, if that's what you're worried about.

They're Federation, he said, and his face got shut-off looking. Closed up tight as a clam. Thanks for looking but forget it. It doesn't get in my way.

Just remember these names. Can you do that? Bacitracin Zinc and Acetaminophen. Need me to write it down?

No. Bacitracin zinc and asset– ases– acet-ah-min-o-fen. I'll remember.

Okay. And try this too. I handed him a bottle from my pocket, that I'd been using all day in place of real sanitary conditions– a bottle of hand sanitiser, still pretty full, that didn't require water. Rub it all over your back. It should help with your scabs, too. If it helps you any with your problem, promise me you'll go see the nurse.

He looked at it for a minute before he took it. Then he looked up at me. You're not too bad.

Thanks, I said.

 

**

 

The manager found out about the sheets.

I'd forgotten. We'll pay him back, I told Howard, and laid down on the plain mattress hardly caring.

You look exhausted.

I am exhausted. But you know, it was worth it. Did you find anything?

Not yet. Some promising leads, though. Folk have been really helpful here. I could get to like this place.

Me too.

You going to go back tomorrow? You should find out if any of these people can pay you. We have to get off this colony, you know.

Just a few places, maybe. There's a homeless shelter with a few cases I should look at, and a church I want to keep tabs on. You remember the kid from the market?

What kid?

The kid who ran by with all that stolen food.

Can't say I do, he yawned, and nodded off on his pillow.

 

**

 

Maxwell Church? Good place, that. You hear good things about that place.

It seems really nice. You have a beautiful home. Is that painting original?

Sure is. Signed, too, see right there, Kirkland. Anyway that Father of theirs served on the Council for a while. Kind of conservative, but you expect that out of a Catholic. He resigned when the Federation put their puppet in as Mayor.

I'm sorry to hear that.

My patient wriggled and bit her lip as I cleaned the pus out of the burn on her thigh with a cotton swab. And that woman he has there, who takes care of the business end, Sister Helen. She's a canny one. She does a lot of work around at the shelters and up at the schools, trying to get us mothers to help out at local charity functions.

She sounds like a good woman.

She is. Her and Father Maxwell, as good as they come. But did you see that brat that keeps loitering around in the church?

What brat?

A little shit if there ever was one. With the scabs all up his arms? Not even Father Maxwell can campaign that one into wholesomeness. He's a little thief, he stole from my husband, God rest him, and he ran a gang of little shits just like him until the Federation stepped in and stopped his hustling. Only decent job the Feds ever did, cleaning him off the street. Only now he's twice as bad, because Father Maxwell, bless him, won't discipline him.

I felt uneasy. He seemed like a smart kid.

Oh, he's smart all right. Just ask the police, who can't nab him despite a hundred eye-witness accounts of his tricks. Father Maxwell won't let them, that boy has the poor man wrapped around his dirty little finger. Father Maxwell doesn't even make him go to school anymore. If the damn brat lives he'll just be an illiterate asshole still ripping decent people off.

Maybe. Don't walk on the leg for a while. You'll be fine.

I wish I could pay you for your help, but I have bills, electric, and now with the fire and my husband, God rest him, he's not around to run the shop anymore, all I have extra goes into the shop and the fire probably took my stock, but I wish I could pay you. You've been such a help.

It's all right.

No, I wish I could pay you. But I barely make enough to pay rent and my parents are coming to live with me in the spring, I have to save up for that. You understand?

Sure. Have a good day.

 

**

 

The last day I went to Maxwell Church there were only fifty or so homeless stuck there in the wake of the fire. Father Maxwell reported that reconstruction was already underway in areas the Federation had deemed safe zones, but that of course the church was always open to anyone in need.

Thank you so much for helping us all, he said. God bless you for your kindness. I don't know what we would have done.

You would have thought of something. People usually do. Say, is that your boy? Duo, right?

That's him.

Did he see the nurse at his school?

As a matter of fact he did. That was something of a surprise... he usually avoids her. He came back with a prescription for some medication. For these lumps on his back. The nurse thinks they might be an allergic reaction to something.

That's good. Good he got that seen.

Hey, Professor. The little guy came right up to me, grinning that grin that made me smile too, giving me a cocky eye. Want to say thank you.

Father Maxwell said you went to the nurse after all.

Yeah. He shrugged indifferently. She got me those creams, just the ones you told me, the bacitracin zinc and acetaminophen.

You did remember the names.

Told you I would.

Your arms look better.

My legs, too. See?

Well, look at that.


	39. Thirty-Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

Duo Maxwell, it was obvious, had never met anyone he couldn't charm.

At least to judge from his cocky attitude. He didn't strut, like the over-bred rich boys Heero would be pretending to be, one day shortly, and he didn't brag, but he looked the world in the eye and winked. That was rather more disarming.

Which, it was equally obvious, was the aim of it.

Like a bright-eyed squirrel Maxwell leapt around the barge, his braid following him on the swing of a shoulder. Sometimes he would skip a step, for no reason except the joy of doing it. And that grin never quite left his face. Even in serious moments it lingered, a curl on the right side of his mouth, the glint of a sharp tooth just visible. And he talked. He talked to the men as if he were one of them, not the only special one in their crowd of average talent. He talked to Howard as if Howard deserved some sort of deference, dipping his head in an almost-solemn nod when the old man spoke, accepting his decisions, not giving the orders. It didn't square. And that was why it worked. He was liked here. Even adored by the crew, who laughed at his jokes and clapped him on the shoulder and watched him sideways with secret envy. Maxwell worked hard for their awe.

Heero didn't. He was himself, and they were afraid of him.

And that, obviously, was the way Heero wanted it.

He made a point of staking out his own space in the hangar, carting a rack of tools to Wing's prone shell. He'd caused damage with his missiles, but mostly superficial. That was likely owed to the unwanted interference of the boy who continued to spy unabashedly on him. When Heero turned his back, Maxwell just moved to a new angle. Once, when Heero looked up, Maxwell waved to him.

Heero set his jaws, and concentrated on shaving down a jagged metal break.

He had peace long enough to acknowledge the ache in his broken leg. It bore his weight without complaint, and worried him less than the crusted sutures binding his gunshot wounds. He'd protected them from grease and flying shards by wrapping them in the gauze Howard had offered, the most debt he wanted to owe these strangers. But they itched, and they were hot to the touch of his palm. Maybe alcohol, soon. To ward off infection.

'Stop poking at it.'

Heero did not jump. Not exactly. He dove sideways for his gun, ripping it out of the holster. Maxwell ignored him, and sat loose-limbed across from him.

Heero released the trigger slowly. 'Don't you have anything else to do?'

'Nope. And you wouldn't either, if you'd let Howard and the guys work on your suit.' Maxwell showed him the face of his watch. 'You've been at it for hours. And before that you were jumping off cliffs after being held prisoner by classic baddies. Eat something and I'll clean your boo-boos.'

'Go away.'

'Tain't hordly friendly-like talk, cowboy.'

Heero broke his determined glare from the kelp lodged in Wing's vulcan pod to look up.

'Don't be cranky,' Maxwell translated. 'Do you have a name yet?'

Heero went back to work. 'No.'

'Well, No-Name, you're bleeding, and Howard has strict hygiene guidelines. Let me clean you up and feed you.' Maxwell stood, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet. 'Or I can shoot your ass again. Want to see what I can hit when I'm not planning on leaving you standing?'

'No,' Heero said.

'Good.'

'I meant.' Heero scraped the file against the rough metal, producing a squeal. Maxwell only raised an eyebrow. 'I meant no. I'm not coming with you. And I'm not trusting you. We're not allies. We're not friends. We're not anything.'

Maxwell considered him, big hands splayed on his hips, his ragged hair moving with each blink of his eyes.

'Boring,' he decided. 'And stupid. What good does it do you to collapse on your own Gundam? Get some damn protein and relax about life, man. We're as safe out here as we're going to be, doing what we're here to do. Enjoy it while it lasts.'

That was when Heero was sure of his guess. Whoever Duo Maxwell really was, he'd never met anyone he couldn't charm, and it galled him that Heero refused to be led by the nose. Heero frustrated him. Heero had assessed him and dismissed him-- no. Not dismissed him. But there was a space between refusal to be fooled and judging a potential enemy. Whoever Duo Maxwell was, he was a sharpshooter, at the least, clever, bold. Good. Maybe very good. But the charm was a crutch. Any crutch could be knocked out, if you kicked fast enough.

Heero itched at the edge of his sutures. 'How long will it last?'

'What? Peace? Until they realise you're not dead, I guess. Until they realise that whoever saved you--'

'Saved me,' Heero said flatly.

'Is likely to have it in for them, too. Add the four, carry the six, and I give it, oh, a week.'

Heero extended the file. Maxwell looked at it for just a second, just a second of distrust, but he took it. He gave it a flip, catching it neatly.

Heero said, 'How's it feel to be you?'

Maxwell's teeth showed white as his lips parted. But he didn't laugh. He met Heero's question with due seriousness. Even thought about it, before he answered, as if he'd never had to pause and think before.

'Chaotic,' Maxwell answered finally. 'Mostly. The rest of the time, free.'

There was a wad of greasy polishing cloth in the tool kit, and Heero wiped his hands on it before buffing it over Wing's bullet-bright surface. The blurry reflection of his arm and face rocked with him as he resettled on his bum, stretching his bad leg out at a comfortable angle. Maxwell followed his movement, too, his eyes tracking all the way to Heero's trainers. Then Maxwell laughed. Heero didn't know why he did, but Maxwell laughed, and when Heero looked at him he laughed harder, tossing his head back.

'You're not normal,' Heero muttered.

'I don't want to be normal. I think it would be boring as all hell to be normal.'

'That doesn't make any sense.'

'Why?' Maxwell returned easily. 'Did you want to be normal?'

'Easier to blend in that way,' Heero said, on a clenched jaw. Obviously.

But Maxwell only shrugged away his logic. 'Why do you care about blending in? And just so you know, you really don't. You really, really don't.' Maxwell sat, taking a tailor's pose with elbows relaxing down on his knees. He balanced the file on one finger, finding the centre immediately, effortlessly.

'I'm not normal either.' Maxwell laughed again, and Heero hunched a shoulder, armour against the sound of it. 'I'm aware of it.'

'Good. Didn't want to have to break it to you.'

'You can relax now.'

'Was that an actual joke?' Maxwell raised him exaggeratedly wide eyes, fluttering his eyelashes girlishly. It would have worked on someone else. Heero would have to remember it.

'Could have been,' he answered belatedly. 'Was it funny?'

'A little rudimentary, but you show some promise,' Maxwell judged. 'Now, if only I could get you to believe that your face won't break if you smile.'

There was only one response to that. He didn't have much practise at it. His face felt stretched, even attempting it, clumsy. It wasn't as good as long eyelashes, but Maxwell stopped breathing for just a quick second. Just a quick second, even shorter than that little moment earlier of questioning him. This was better. Heero would remember that, too.

Maxwell slid closer, til his knees knocked the tool kit. He touched Heero's chin with his fingers, turning Heero's head this way and that. So close that he smelled like boy and sweat and sun-baked cotton shirts. He sat back on his heels. He said, 'When you show your teeth, try not to look like a dog baring its fangs. A little glimmer's enough.'

Heero wet his lips with his tongue. He smiled again, Maxwell's smile, turning up just the corner. Maxwell was all the mirror he needed, matching him exactly.

'Not bad,' Maxwell said, with just a little more slur, just drawing out the words that little bit more, and his eyes were frank, very bold. 'I think you have a dimple.' He prodded Heero's cheek gently with a finger. 'Or you would if you kept at it.'

Heero touched the same spot. Maybe a little fold of skin. Maybe. 'Is that what you did?'

'Smile a lot? Yeah, I guess so. A smile's an effective weapon, Mr No-Name. You have no idea how fast a smile can disarm an enemy and make a friend. I even roped you in, didn't I.'

'Or I'm roping you,' Heero said.

Maxwell didn't believe him. He laughed again. His dimple was deep, an apostrophe beside his mouth. 'No-one ropes me, Mister. No-one's ever roped me, and it'll stay that way. You may be strong, but I run faster. In every sense.'

'I stand corrected then.' His third smile felt almost easy. He didn't try the lashes, not yet, but he did attempt that head toss, so that his hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away, and Maxwell's eyes followed his hand, too. Aware of every twitch of muscle. But appreciative, too. Heero knew it, and allowed himself to enjoy knowing it.

'Better yet.'

'It learns,' Heero said drily.

'Don't wrench your arm out of the socket patting yourself on the back. You still haven't explained the cute blonde girl. That was pretty sloppy work, you know, and you should probably try to avoid getting captured by Alliance before we manage to kill any of 'em.'

'The Darlian girl was a miscalculation,' Heero said, irritated now. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and went back to polishing his Gundam. The cloth snagged on the rough surface, but only until he daubed wax into the pockmark. 'It won't happen again.'

'Darlian. Like, Vice Foreign Minister Darlian?' Maxwell pursed his lips, and fell back on his elbows, tapping the file on his leg. 'So that's his daughter. Weird twist on an old plot. How'd you meet her? She's got the hots for you, man.'

That was a longer story. Heero had no intention of sharing it. Perhaps he shouldn't have said as much as he had, in revealing Relena Darlian's name. If Maxwell hadn't found out on his own following their confrontation at the pier, it wasn't information he needed. Unless it was... J had said once that there were others. But J had also said there were no others after all, that the programme had failed. That Heero launched to Earth alone with a single mission. It was now patently a lie, but he didn't know the purpose behind the lie, and that meant he was not, himself, fully informed. And until he was fully informed it was best to keep his own counsel. Keep the advantage. 'It was an accident,' he replied, a judicious parcelling of words that might mean anything or everything.

Maxwell accepted it with a shrug-- or at least didn't follow through. 'So what was the plan? Assassinate her, ransom her to Pops? Kind of round-about. He's only a Vice-Minister, and military types are usually willing to take a few casualties, even pretty blonde ones.'

But it nagged. If they hadn't known about each other, if there were in fact more Gundams, perhaps it also stood to reason that they knew different things. And that intelligence sharing-- gathering-- would be to Heero's benefit, if carefully done. Heero pursed his lips the way Maxwell had. It didn't particularly help him with the thinking, but it might make him look like he was considering something deeply.

'What's your clearance level?'

Maxwell grinned. 'Woulda been Nine, but since I stole my Gundam, I'm guessing it's been revoked. You know how it goes.'

Nine. The same as Heero's. But that was not as interesting as stealing the Gundam. Heero looked across the hangar at the black-painted mecha. Stolen. 'Her dossier is wrong.'

'Wrong how?'

'Very wrong. Darlian isn't her father. She's a Peacecraft.'

Maxwell barely twitched an eye. 'Interesting, but tactically irrelevant.'

'Maybe, maybe not. If it's irrelevant, why's it such a big secret?'

'Probably pretty relevant inside the Alliance, but not so much for us. Fascist pigs don't draw the line at killing babies, but it's still their business.'

Heero dragged his eyes from the scythe weapon on the black Gundam. 'You take this too personally.'

'So what motivates you? It's not money, or you'd have better pants.'

Heero snapped the hemline of his pantleg, confused. 'What's wrong with them?'

'I'd say they'd look better on my floor, but the floor's never done anything to deserve that from me.'

'On your floor?' He'd never heard that idiom, in English or any other language. On the floor. Pants on the-- oh. 'Were we cleared for sex?'

The dimple made another appearance, deeper as the grin spread slowly over Maxwell's face. 'God, you're entertainment, all right.'

'It was a legitimate question!' he protested, and was annoyed with himself for reacting at all to Maxwell's ridicule. Neither of them were winning this game of roping each other, and it was a waste of time and energy to try it. He grabbed up the kit and swung around for the dip of Wing's torso, sliding neatly along the rivet to a free-fall drop to the floor, some thirty feet below. He twisted to land on his shoulder, curling around the kit, and rolled with the impact to come back to his good knee. He dusted himself with his free hand.

Maxwell landed beside him only a moment later, with the aid of a guide-line strung over the Gundam's big belly. He fell into a companionable stroll beside Heero, standing aside with a little wave to let Heero pass through the door first to the supply closet, then the common room with its tiny efficiency kitchenette. Heero stripped his sweated shirt and used a bottled water to splash himself under the arms and down the spine, rubbing a handful through his hair. He drank the rest in steady swallows, and tossed the plastic into the recycle bin to be refilled later from stores.

Through all of that Maxwell waited patiently. It wasn't until Heero brushed past him out into the hangar proper again that Maxwell spoke, to his back, in an almost polite and indifferent tone.

'Can I suggest something heretical and shocking?'

Heero grunted. He wiped himself down with his shirt and donned it again, shrugging it into place as he walked. There had to be hard electrical equipment available, in a place this size. He'd be able to repair the exposed wiring in Wing's shoulder and shield-arm. 'You can suggest whatever you want.'

'You've got this giant robot over there, at least when you haven't torpedoed it out of commission.' Maxwell followed him patiently, two steps to his back, keeping fully in his peripheral vision. Heero grudgingly respected the gesture. Not all men would have thought of it. 'I'm gathering you've been told repeatedly that the fate of the universe depends on your absolute obedience, but the fact of the matter is that your guns are quite a big bigger, now. They really don't have any call to tell you what to do.'

Heero about-faced. 'So you're telling me that sex is optional.'

Maxwell stopped when he did. 'Amongst other things, yes.'

'And you want some.'

'I'm fifteen, aren't I?'

'That part of your dossier appears not to have been manufactured.'

Maxwell didn't take the bait. He only grinned again. 'Another joke? You're on a roll.'

Doggedly Heero tried again, dropping the hint even more heavily, to see if it would take. 'They told me we'd get along better if I made an effort.'

Maxwell rolled his eyes. 'They, again.'

Not disturbed by the idea that Heero knew more about him than he knew about Heero? Or just bluffing. 'There's always a They,' Heero said. 'Even for you.'

Maxwell nodded. 'Yes, but for me it's a binary. They, suggesting there's a Me.' He spread his hands. 'Possibly an Us.'

Like hell. Accidental allies was one thing. A rescue from enemy territory that exposed them both, exposed the Gundams as more than rogue elements. And, always, Relena Darlian Peacecraft. That would have to be reckoned with. But not by an Us.

He pursed his lips, as if he were thinking about it, and lied. 'I have no problem working with you if you swear not to get me killed.'

Maxwell's grin was back. Vicious. Like a dog bearing his fangs. 'No promises.'

That, Heero decided, he believed. 'I'll keep that in mind. There's that dimple.'

'There it is,' Maxwell echoed, as it faded.

 

**

 

Their dinner meal in the mess was simple, but hearty and plentiful. Fresh-caught fish, from some of Howard's men, and stovetop cornmush, Earther foods. Heero ate it because it was in front of him. Maxwell ate it because he had apparently limitless enthusiasm for trivial things.

'What kind of fish is it?' he asked. 'It's not dolphin, is it? I heard they're as smart as people. Which would kind of make it cannibalism.'

Howard laughed as if that were very funny, and not, as Heero thought, completely illogical. 'Not dolphin, kid. Marlin.'

'What's marlin?'

'Big fish with a spear on his nose,' Howard said. 'Hang around tomorrow and you can try it for yourself.'

'Awesome. Don't you think that sounds awesome, Mr No-Name?'

All heads turned toward Heero.

'No,' Heero said, and ate the last spoonful of his cornmush. He put his plates in the sink and left.

It took Maxwell seven seconds to appear beside him. 'You should be nicer to them. They are fixing our Gundams out of patriotism.'

'Some of them are Earthers.'

'We try not to throw rotten eggs at them.' Maxwell blocked him from turning toward the storage closets. 'So,' he said, 'now that we're on friendly terms, do I get to see the inside of your Gundam?'

That was unexpected. 'I doubt it's any different from yours.'

'We'll know for sure when I see it, won't we.'

Intelligence gathering. Maybe when you considered yourself charming, you had greater success in just outright stating your objectives. It did make it hard to marshal arguments quickly. 'Is this-- reciprocal?'

'Of course not,' Maxwell answered promptly.

Heero clenched his jaw. 'Why should I say yes then?'

'I didn't say you couldn't try to persuade me. I can be bribed.'

Bribery. That wasn't exactly surer footing. All he knew for sure about Maxwell was that he was reckless, fifteen, wanted sex, and thought marlin fishing was awesome. Sex. Oh. 'What do you want?' he asked, trying out that smile. He'd practised in the bath. It felt more natural now. 'Except the inside of my Gundam?'

'We'll start with that,' Maxwell replied blandly. 'Never open a bargain too broadly.'

Heero was nonplussed. He did not like to be nonplussed. Uncertainty did not lend itself to solid decision-making. That was, quite possibly, Maxwell's goal.

But he also didn't want to be seen being uncertain, and the longer he stood in silence the more Maxwell would know he'd inspired confusion. So Heero brushed him off with a swipe of his hand, pushing Maxwell out of his way. 'Fine. Let's go.' Maxwell rocked a step forward, and Heero turned again, to plant his hand flat against Maxwell's chest. 'You're not to touch anything.'

'How about we start with I won't touch anything that makes changes?'

Heero pushed with his hand. 'Do you want to see it or not?'

'You can always try and stop me, I suppose, but then again, you've got to catch me first.' That was all the warning Heero got. Maxwell dove left and streaked past him. Out of instinct Heero burst into motion, pounding into a dead run, but Maxwell had just a few precious seconds on him. That, and he was almost as fast as he claimed he was.

The sound of their shoes on the metal hangar floor created echoing thunder, but Heero was sure he heard laughter, too. He found himself grinning, when his greater stamina pulled him through, and the distance between he and Maxwell began to close. He was almost close enough to grab at Maxwell's shirt, right before Maxwell took a flying leap up Wing's side and caught the gripline, climbing like a monkey scaling a tree. Heero lost ground now, awkward on his broken leg, reliant on the strength of his arms to haul him up. Still, he was only just behind Maxwell as Maxwell slapped the hatch release on the cockpit and dropped in. Heero jumped from a foot away and landed hard, straddling the pilot seat, a foot on each of the armstands, and Maxwell, barely winded but grinning like a loon, on his back between Heero's legs.

'Move over,' Heero said, and dropped into the seat beside him. It was a tight fit with both their bodies, radiating heat from the exertion of the run. Maxwell had bony hips, and worse elbows.

'You shouldn't have run,' Maxwell said absently. He was gazing around with lively curiosity, every look drinking in what Heero presumed were familiar features of a cockpit. Even powered down, Wing was a grand beast, Heero thought, allowing himself just a momentary glow of pride. Was Maxwell jealous? Did he have reason to be? Or was his Gundam different after all? Would they really have made them so different? Maxwell's L2 twang hardly suggested the blessing of wealth. But if Maxwell had the same patron that Heero did, colonial origin wouldn't matter.

'I asked, how's your leg, No-Name?'

'Fine.' It ached now, after strenuous activity, but it would heal. He always healed. 'Are you done?'

'Not hardly,' Maxwell scoffed. His fingers dragged in loving trails over the dash, over buttons and gauges, digital screens, keyboards.

Over a blinking red light. The viewscreen was activated, filming them. Only one person could have activated it, or known there would be something to watch-- and on which frequency. Heero reached for the touch-screen, swiping it to closed status, and catching the microphones too. He locked access to a password. And would have to change it again when Maxwell was gone.

Maxwell said, 'He wasn't going to watch all of it.'

That paused Heero. 'You set this up with him?'

'No, but I've known Howard since I was a kid. He talks a good game, but he's pretty Victorian when you get to the good stuff. Did you modify the thrusters?'

Good stuff. No time to wonder what that tossed-off comment might be. 'They were capable of more,' Heero answered vaguely.

'I'm not trying to be critical, but your baby's built for blunt force, not finesse. I'd hate to see you make a sharp turn with all the firepower you packed in those thrusters.'

'I can handle it.'

Maxwell wrapped his fingers around the steering. Wing shivered at his touch, tender as it was; Heero watched it with an odd feeling in his gut, the way joy and wonder and almost sexual thrill communicated itself through just the curl of his fists. Never enough pressure to actually stir the Gundam from its recumbent pose, but Wing responded nonetheless, coming alive, waking from its sleep, breathing in as Maxwell did.

Heero scratched at his pants. If they were on the floor, they wouldn't fit so tightly, suddenly.

'Why the lightsabre?'

J's idea. 'Design,' he said. 'He... They... thought it was dashing.' He reached to cover Maxwell's hand. 'You weren't going to touch.'

'Technically, you're the one who said I wasn't going to touch. It's funny, isn't it? I think our artistic Theys read the wrong kind of literature. I'm not opposed to a weapon that strikes a little fear at first sight, but there's nothing wrong with a gun, either.'

Heero liked guns, too. He couldn't disagree with that. 'He's-- They're-- thinking with the wrong head.'

'You know, a beam cannon backup...' Maxwell's lips were pursed, as he tapped his fingers on the control that moved the saber. It was just a whisper of movement, the mecha responding to a touch that knew exactly how much pressure to apply. 'Howard could set you up. Deathscythe-- that beautiful beast over there-- primarily relies on thermal energy. Nothing like an alternative, just in case.'

Deathscythe. It was a blunt name for a blunt instrument of vengeance. Heero liked it, and thought perhaps he shouldn't. 'I'll ask him.' Maxwell stretched for the foot pedal, to make Wing's left leg creak. 'You really did get me up here to talk stats.'

Maxwell grinned swiftly at Heero. 'Foreplay, darling.'

He put his hand in Maxwell's lap. He was warm through the fabric of his trousers, a comfortable fit to Heero's palm, rising at his touch. 'It's not necessary.'

'Maybe for you,' Maxwell retorted, undisturbed. 'I like a little romance. Nothing quite like an exotic dream-boat to get the party started.' He caressed the controls, lifting his eyes to Heero's. 'You're not so bad, either.'

'I don't do romance,' Heero said. He squeezed soft flesh with his hand, and leaned in. Maxwell's mouth opened under his, and his tongue met Heero's willingly. That was good. Flat on their backs in the pilot's chair they were well positioned for it, except for having such little space to move about. Heero pulled one of those big hands to his crotch, fitted it to him, pressed it there until the weight of it was just right. He shivered, just like Wing, and detested his own weakness. But he could taste Maxwell's grin, found that dimple with his lips, the lift of a chin well pleased with triumph, and forgave himself the slip. Maxwell would think he'd won, that Heero was distractable and unwary, and would make a mistake in overconfidence. Heero would wait. And enjoy the waiting.

But then his plans were thwarted. Maxwell sat back with a sigh, lounging back with an arm over his head, his elbow so narrowly missing Heero's nose that Heero had to rear up. No accident. Maxwell pulled his hand away from Heero's groin, and Heero had no choice but to let it go. 'No offence meant,' Maxwell murmured, 'but we're a little lacking in preparation.'

Ah. That was easily solved. Heero kicked at the storage bag hanging from its peg, and dug for the tube of liquid silicone. He tossed it at Maxwell, and it landed on his chest. Maxwell turned it to the light. His mouth, red from kissing, screwed to the side. Not happy.

Heero dropped his head back to the headrest. 'Isn't this what you brought me up here for?'

'I was thinking about other parts.'

'Oh.' He took the silicone from Maxwell's hold. He tossed at the bag, and missed. It fell to the floor, falling under the chair somewhere. That annoyed him. He'd have to find it later, or it would be a hazard during flight.

Maxwell puffed out a breath of air. 'Look, there's stuff in the kitchen, which isn't so far. Don't suppose you'd mind a short jog?'

Yes. But there were other ways and means. He changed his tactic. 'Want to fly it?'

It was clear on Maxwell's face that he knew he was being tricked. But he couldn't resist it. 'Fuck, yes.'

He stood on the armrests again to buckle Maxwell in, securing the harness loosely over chest and between his legs. Loose enough to slide down in the chair behind him, the press of their bodies deliberately slow. He spread his thighs wide to either side of Maxwell's skinny bottom, their ankles tight. He rested his chin on Maxwell's shoulder. 'Go,' he whispered.

Maxwell didn't wait to be told twice. He activated the camera with a quick stab of his finger. 'Boys, we're headed out,' he called. 'Don't wait up.' Wing wrenched upright with a huge heave, spun sinuously sideways in a smooth manoeuvre to avoid the low ceiling of the barge's hangar, and with a single rev of the engines was in the air and bursting out into the orange-hued dusk.

'Wooo!' Maxwell hollered. Heero wrapped an arm about his middle as they righted to a sharp upward angle, rocketing for the sky. 'Yeah! Damn, that's where it is.'

'You don't need to jerk the controls.' It did throw Maxwell against him, which was not unpleasant. 'I've tuned them.'

'Tuned them to suck. I told you this thing moves like a pregnant cow.' No warning but the sentiment. Maxwell wrenched Wing around in a dashing series of hairpin turns that left them both light-headed and breathless from g-force pressure.

Heero blinked spots from his eyes. 'That's because you fly like a baboon.' He caught Maxwell's wrists.

But Maxwell only elbowed him away with those sharp points he called joints. 'You said I could play.'

'Then play nice.'

Maxwell obeyed, miraculously. Mostly. Their flight smoothed, but for the occasional twist and twirl. The sky and its ocean reflection were deepening to pinks and then to purples, and Maxwell showed no signs of stopping. But he was learning. He was, Heero grudgingly admitted, extremely good. He was testing Wing expertly, finding extremes, finding limits, exploiting them. Heero himself struggled to orient to each new swing of direction, and in Earth atmosphere, no less, but Maxwell flew as if gravity had no effect, as if the horizon line did not exist.

And then they dove.

They plunged into the water at full speed, and it was like a bomb going off, the spray around them, the gurgling water in bubbles that turned to black as they passed the reach of sunlight. Heero let go of Maxwell's wrists. He would do what he would do, the lunatic, as it pleased him. He dropped his hands to Maxwell's stomach, instead, overlapping his fingers to Maxwell's taut muscles. He felt it, that way. The way Maxwell's breathing deepened and slowed, the leak of tension, the almost meditative way his body relaxed into the dive. The port and the viewscreen both showed only darkness. Kelp wound around them and then even that disappeared. It was almost like Space. Silent, and vast, and unknown. But not empty. Heero closed his eyes and rested his cheek against Maxwell's hair.

'You're out of your mind,' he said.

'Not that I've noticed, but crazy people are the last to know, aren't they?' Maxwell turned his head. Heero brushed his lips over Maxwell's cheek, catching the edge of his lip. Maxwell smiled for it, but his eyes were on the ocean, far away.

They were entering dangerous depths. Now the creaks and moans were water pressure, building around them, until even Gundamium began to crimp. If they burst a seam here, they would die, unquestionably. And there would be new repairs to make even if they went no further. But Heero found he didn't want to protest. He didn't understand, but it was something strange and intriguing, this mysterious adventure. He would never have done it. But a boy who stole his Gundam would. Free. He understood that much. And wistfully knew he'd never know more than watching.

It seemed a very long time before Maxwell sighed, and lifted his thumb off the accelerator. Wing almost immediately coasted to a halt, stopped by the weight of the water. 'Would've liked to see the bottom,' he mumbled.

'Take your own suit to the bottom.'

'My suit doesn't have a built-in seat warmer with an erection.'

Unaccountably Heero felt his face warm. 'I don't have an erection.' Well-- maybe a little. But not intentionally.

Maxwell's sudden laugh banished the solemnity of the moment. 'I could give you one, if you like.'

His face was hotter then. 'I'm sure you could.'

'Since we're down here for a while, let's negotiate some terms.' Maxwell leaned into him, and his hands fell to Heero's thighs, stroking gently. 'Real lube, or at least something water-based. And without asking any questions, I'm going to mandate some kind of rubber between the two of us for the duration of the contact.'

'Acceptable.'

'Howard's got a stash, so if he's not busy when we get back, I'll steal it off him. If he is busy, there's cling-wrap in the kitchen. That would do.'

'I have some,' Heero said.

'What, here? You keep a deli in your Gundam?'

'Condoms.'

'Even weirder.'

'Why don't you have any?' Heero returned, growing cross with the teasing. That was twice Maxwell had put him off with a sharp tongue, and he didn't like it.

Sharp and tart. 'I'm not running a floating brothel in my Gundam?' Maxwell said cheerfully. 'But to each his own, I suppose. They do say it takes all kinds.'

'It's important to be prepared.'

'Well, in this case I'll applaud it, but in the future we'll have a talk.' Maxwell looked around him. He slapped Heero's thigh, and renewed his grip on the controls. 'Well, I think I've seen about all I came to see. You?'

'If you think you can pilot out of the water, yes.' He decided then that when he got his turn in Deathscythe Gundam, the gloves would be off. Maxwell could have his fun, and so would Heero. And that would be a fight he wouldn't let Maxwell win, game or no game.

Maxwell left the ocean the same way he'd entered it-- at full throttle. Wing burst out of the water like a knife, slicing waves and then air in just a split second. But the flight back to the barge was almost sedate. The rules, such as they were, seemed to be back in force. Heero noticed that Maxwell made all due checks for enemy satellites, but they were in the clear, and no rush was warranted. The moon was high, and they had light enough to run on blind instruments. They skimmed low over the water, rising only when the barge was at last in sight. Maxwell docked them neatly, alighting with such precision that Wing was laid to rest almost exactly where it had been before, nestled between the banks of lifts and welders. The only evidence of their sojourn was water, dripping off the Gundam into puddles.

Heero turned off the screen as Howard's men greeted them. 'Satisfied?' he asked.

'Sweet ride, son. Thanks for the tour.'

'You're welcome. My turn now?'

'I thought we were going to be busy for the next hour?'

Heero inhaled deeply. 'You're never going to let me get near your mobile suit, are you?'

Maxwell grinned back at him. 'I'm at least as interesting as it is.'

'That remains to be seen.'

Maxwell's palm curled warm around Heero's neck. 'Careful,' he said, 'or you won't get either.'

'You're funny.'

'You know?' Maxwell released the harness and opened the hatch. 'I'm sort of impressed with that quality in myself, too.'


	40. Forty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

I'd always hoped one day I'd grow up a little.

Seriously. Up. Vertical. I mean I can rationalise and say it was really helpful most the time to be short. I can hide easier. I can fit into little holes better. My feet never hang off the edge of the bed. I don't have to duck under doorframes and I'll be the last one in a crowd to get hit by lightning.

But I always wanted to be tall.

All my heroes were tall. Solo was tall, and if he'd lived he might have been a frickin' giant. Father was tall, or at least impressive. Sister was pretty tall too, come to think of it, for a woman. J.R. Ewing on Dallas was tall. He was the mack. Money and women and height. Heero grew up tall.

But I'm not tall, and I can live with it. I just feel a little wistful, sometimes. I can remember years ago when I looked at my old partner and realised I was eyeing his chest, not gazing at his chin anymore. I can remember the first time he patted me on the head like a little kid, and how I hated it. I can remember the only time he hugged me, the day before Relena Peacecraft married that English guy, and I ended out crushing my nose in his armpit.

But you know, I was used to those little reality bites. I'd been enduring quite a few popping bubbles over the years. Just little nips on the behind of your delusions, and every time, I felt a little more diminished. The height started to matter when I didn't have anything else to make me feel big.

I've been in love with Heero for what seems all my life. I'm not a subtle person, and so it wasn't very long before even my oblivious friend was uncomfortably aware of it. Not to say I ran around leaving him "notsosecret admirer" flowers and trying to get him into bed with me. I'd never do that and anyway, it would have been too unbearably humiliating to try. He doesn't love me back. There's a lot of affection there, built over the years, but I would never say anything to him about it. He just doesn't love me.

I can remember when I gave up and admitted that I was going to be one of those "unrequited" lovers.

And it's okay to tell yourself that you can be content with the crumbs. The rare moments of one-on-one at a diner on a Tuesday night after a decent day's work. The occasional hand on your shoulder when he leans over to get a doughnut or a Christmas card one year out of five and you get so thrilled he thought of you at all, because you remember every year and every birthday and every everything and you always get disappointed...

If you didn't have the crumbs, you'd be running on nothing and you can't just put all that emotional investment in the garbage and let the anonymous men take it away in the morning. I can't just let it go. I don't want to try and stop loving him, because I love him.

I do that. I need that one person, that one "perfect" person to invest everything in. It's not like obsession, really; just that it's too selfish, maybe, to put it all in me. Or too lonely. I'm terrified of being alone.

I don't really get a lot of satisfaction from the Preventers. I was never a true believer in peace and when the war ended, I'd figured I'd payed my due and I could go– but I didn't have a home and so when Heero asked, I took that and wrapped my heart around it and that was a mistake. But I never did learn to walk away from my mistakes and so year after year I take my New Year's bonus and go home to a flat and whatever faceless roommate lives there dicking around with his girlfriend and I think about buying a ticket this year and getting out, buying a fast car or a dog or a whore, something. And January 2, I go back to work and somehow slog through.

I'm thirty-four. Thirty-four isn't sexy anymore, isn't young-ish anymore, isn't fun or zippy or easy anymore. It's midlife crisis, midlife depression, midlife, middle, middling, muddled and muggy. It's tired and lonely.

I hate being alone, and I'm not strong enough or smart enough to admit that I am, that I am lonely, and leaving could fix it, if I could just _start over._

Back during the war I'd been the best of the best. An elite, for once, instead of one of those millions of homeless and starving, one of those millions of orphans and one of those millions of helpless clueless numbers on a chart. All my pride had been wrapped up in that. In those years of training, the years of math and simulators and survival and perfect scores at the shooting range. I wasn't a Wufei– he actually WANTED to be back with the nameless and ignored of life. He was the elite because he'd been born that way and it was something he was expected to do. Quatre did it because he couldn't even imagine, in his innocent and benign fashion, being anything but. Trowa might be more like me, but I'll never know, since he'd never talk to me and I'd never work up the nerve to ask.

Heero was elite because he was just that good, and he couldn't be a number on a chart unless he was dead, deaf and blind.

After the war, suddenly we didn't need elite. Suddenly everyone was equal again and everyone was part of that big happy Peacecraft family and my kind of elite was out-of-fashion. Back in that feeling of pride I had I could be the better person and say good-bye to Shinigami and shake hands with Quatre who was suddenly not my grubby, sweaty and bloody war buddy but a teenager with a fortune and future. I could even talk about the scrap yard and Hirde like it meant something, and maybe it would have, if it hadn't all fallen apart without the glue of the war to hold it together.

No, it makes sense if you think of it the way we thought of it then. In war, there's a... desperation to everything. You pick up a carrot in the grocery store and it's not a funny looking orange vegetable, it's a God-damned _carrot_ and what if you never hold one again because a bomb gets into the wrong hands and you're dead tomorrow? You meet someone and they're so much more precious because neither of you will be breathing tomorrow and so you don't notice so much things like compatibility because you have to live in the NOW because the NOW might be gone tomorrow– you sleep with someone you don't really love because you're both scared and maybe then there's a baby and then there's an abortion because who would bring a child into this horrible world and then when you're older and you haven't called Hirde in longer than you can remember you do remember and you think, she was pretty, she was really pretty and I bet she grew up to be a beautiful woman, you think, Jesus, if I'd known it would all be over in a year, in just a few more months, we never would have gone to the clinic and I'd be a father and I'd be driving my kid to baseball games and birthdays– God.

Pop. There go my walls, my illusions, one by one.

You wake up one day in your closet-sized office– not the one with the window down the hall like you asked for a few years ago and someone else always got it– sitting at a desk with a load of paperwork that ultimately means nothing and a microwave dinner dripping cheese sauce on your tie and that damn light flickering, what the hell is the hold-up on that work-order can't I have a god-damn working light! and you cry. You cry over not having a corner office with a window and the cheese sauce and the electricity but you're really crying about not calling Hirde in years and Heero down the hall, he knows you love him still after all these years and out of kindness because he does like you, at least, at least he never flaunted those others at you and are you really this pathetic? But you are, and you cry and you pray that no one hears you because you couldn't bear it, you just  
can't  
bear  
it

And when you finally collect what is left of your dignity and your calm and you feel a little better for having gotten that out of you, the tissues are on the top shelf and you're too fucking short to reach them.

I don't sleep very much at night, lumpy mattress and television too much of a distraction. I think about calling Heero, I memorised his number like it was going to be etched on my heart; I think I could say, safely on the other end of a wire somewhere connected to a doodad connected to a man who is still that gorgeous manic boy in my mind-- think I could say, Heero, I love you. I love you and I just need to say it so I can end it.

But I'd make him butcher me. I'd make him say he doesn't love me like that, will never, could never, I would make him say there's someone else, Duo, I would make him say that maybe sometime we should have coffee or something and it would all be okay (translation: I don't think I'll be able to meet your eyes tomorrow), and then when he finally hung up, because I wouldn't hang up first, I'd sit up all night and repeat everything he'd said until I was standing on my balcony wondering if it would hurt to fall all that way.

I can't imagine what I'm living for, but I don't want to die. So I lie in bed and hope for re-runs and rub that sore shoulder I got from sleeping on this incredibly lumpy mattress and forget to think.

I get up in the morning and I shower and I call the barber because the braid is too damn long and anyway I don't remember why it was so important to me (I'll forget to go to the appointment), and I'll brush my teeth which are still white and straight as ever despite all the sugar in my diet. I'll put on the same black socks I've worn for years and the same white briefs and the same white tee shirt and black pants that are starting to get a little tight around the belly and the grey dress shirt that makes me look washed-out and the Preventers jacket I never took pride in.

I go to work and I smile and say hello, good morning, you look great today, cut your hair? how're the boys? is this fresh milk? and end out sitting at my desk and cursing because the system is down again.

Waiting for my spreadsheets to be accessible I'll fool around on the GLOBLWEB and join a gym or buy a three-hundred credit leather arm chair.

Look up and see Zechs Marquise in my door looking at me.

He comes and looks at me sometimes. Oddly, I think he cares. Sometimes we talk a little bit, sometimes he just waits until I see him and then he smiles at me and leaves. He's not in love with me or anything. He's just a man who has probably been where I am, frustrated with the office, with life. He's just– nice. The kind of guy who will pretend he didn't hear you crying and reach up and take down the tissues for you, as if you only wanted them so you could dust off your printer.

Sometimes I wonder if I was Heero's partner because I was, or if he just let me be because I wanted it so much. He didn't need me. He got along fine without me when I wasn't there. At those times I wish he'd never let me near him. I don't know if I'd be a different man at thirty-four if he'd never allowed me near enough to fall in love, but without knowing, I can still wish for what I don't have.

Don't have my heart. Don't have a lot of heart for anything, really, even the heart to change my attitude.

Don't have a life.

Don't have the inches to make a shot over his head, like I used to be able to, at the company game. He just grabs the ball out of the air and runs off with it without looking back to see me seething, though in all fairness it isn't really anything to do with him minus the lack of sensitivity to my notsosecret misery. Not his fault he's tall. Not his problem. Not even his duty to remember I hate being shown up, because he _doesn't love me_ and he doesn't owe me jack shit.

At the end of the game, Zechs Marquise, the Jolly Green Giant to my David the Gnome, there at the end to smoke a cigarette with me and make small talk about the weather. He's going on a trip with the wife and his teenage money-sucking kids and wonders if I'm interested, they're inviting Noin's cousin and wife too, so it would be a good group of adults while the kids ran around and spent more money.

While I'm wandering around in their picture-perfect cabin on the lake I hear the cousin ask who I am. I don't bother to listen for Zechs' answer; I'm just a man who when I was a kid used to be somebody almost famous.

Merry Christmas, Heero.

I didn't like any of the cards at the store, and in the end, I didn't get him one. It wouldn't have mattered if I did, because he took Christmas off and went on vacation.

After all. We're just two people who used to know each other, back when all that shit was going down. But we're grown up now. And we can't keep holding on to those things that used to matter so much when we were kids, when there was a war, when we were going to die tomorrow.

I might put in another work order, or ask again for the office with a window. I might go to a bar and take the first person who comes, if someone comes– I'm thirty-four and no prize, but I'm handsome enough and I can pay for a beero or two, or a cab ride around the city. There might be sex and it might be good, like something at the edge of your memory that's a pleasant surprise to be remembered, and there might be breakfast in the morning and suddenly my life might pick up.

Christmas Eve I got a call in the office. Merry Christmas, Duo. See? I didn't forget. Wish you were here, love Heero, PS could you feed my goldfish? You know the address.

Fuck you, Heero Yuy. All my life, falling just those few inches short, my whole life just short of content, of easy, of simple.

Duo Maxwell, and the rest falls

short.


	41. Forty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._

“Oh, yeah, right,” Duo said. “Like I’m going to take relationship advice from the Virgin Mary over there.”

“Ha,” Trowa said. “That was funny.”

“Wait,” Quatre said. “You mean me? I’m the Virgin Mary?”

“Duh.”

“I’m not a virgin,” Quatre said indignantly.

“Definitely a girl, though,” Wufei interjected.

Quatre folded his arms over his chest while his so-called friends went into gales of entirely unwarranted laughter. “I’m not,” he repeated. “All of you shut up.”

Duo actually had to wipe his eyes. He finished his beer with a final swallow and left the bottle on the bar. “Hilarious,” he said. “I’m done, guys. See you all in the office bright and early.” He dropped a pair of bills to the bar and left with a wave.

“Me, too,” Wufei decided. He took out his wallet.

“I’m not,” Quatre said.

“We’re just teasing,” Trowa soothed him. “Don’t take it seriously. Here, I’ll buy your drink. What did you have? Ginger ale?”

Wufei snickered again. “Ginger ale,” he mimicked. Trowa even grinned. Trowa.

“I hate you all,” Quatre said.

 

**

 

It should have ended there. In any kind of fair universe, it would have died a quiet death.

“I’m uncomfortable accepting funds from a private institution,” Une said in the ten am Appropriations Committee meeting. “We get government sponsorship. I’m not comfortable with the message we’d be sending.”

“Private citizens value global safety too,” Noin shrugged. “If it comes down to cutting our training and production budget or observing some imaginary line between us and the public, I know what I’m voting.”

“It’s not an arbitrary decision,” Merquise said. “The appearance of impartiality is functional for us.”

“I want to know what Quatre thinks,” Benson said.

Quatre sat straighter in his chair. “I think—“

“Wait,” Benson said. He arranged his hands on the conference table, pressing his palms together under his chin and lowering his head. Quatre blinked, unable to figure out what he was doing. In a pious, sing-song voice, Benson intoned, “Holy Virgin, bless us with your wisdom—“

Everyone dissolved into giggles. Even Une cracked a smile. She hurriedly hid it behind a hand when Quatre glared at her.

“This is not funny,” Quatre complained.

“Oh, come on, Quatre.” Benson wore a huge grin. “Relax. It was a joke.”

“I’m twenty-seven years old! I am not a virgin!”

“All right, a little order, people.” Une made a show of shuffling her files. “I want to get some research on this. Benson, check with Legal. Merquise, hunt down Camilla Weatherford over in the Secretary of State; she’s handled private funding issues before and might have some advice for us. Quatre, go back to Marshall Group and get some solid figures on what they want to donate.”

“Fine,” Quatre muttered. He was far less graceful shoving his notes into his briefcase. The meeting over, Benson and Merquise departed quickly. Une went out the opposite way, her schedule as tightly packed as always.

“They’re just teasing,” Noin offered. She finished her juice and dropped the cup into the trash bin in the corner. “Benson was at the bar last night and overheard. I told him not to, but you know what he’s like.”

“Well, everyone’s had their digs, and I’m glad I’m such a source of joy for everyone.” He heard himself whining, and sighed. “Sorry. I just don’t see why it’s such a great joke.”

“You’re a _really_ sweet guy,” she said firmly. “Don’t let them make you feel bad about it.”

“I’m not that sweet.” Noin raised her eyebrows, and he scowled. “I’m not. And I do—not-sweet things. I was a Gundam Pilot!”

“I know. We all know.” She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “It’s not like it’s shameful to be a nice person.”

Quatre glanced out the door. The hall was momentarily deserted. Quatre closed the door, then thought better of his colleagues, and locked it.

“Quatre?” Noin questioned, puzzled.

“I am _not_ ,” Quatre said, “a nice person.” He slowly closed her in against the big oak table. Her eyes widened when her back hit it. Quatre cupped her elbows, then slid his palms down to her trim waist. She was a tall woman, just slightly shorter than himself. He pressed forward, gently, slowly, until they were hip to hip, and he could smell the apple spice from her juice on her breath against his cheek.

“Quatre,” she repeated, in a suddenly shy whisper. “What are you doing?”

“Proving a point,” he murmured.

He put every bit of his—if not considerable, then still very serviceable experience into the kiss. He nipped tenderly at her lips with his, teased her smooth teeth open with lightning flicks of his tongue until she responded with her own. He watched from beneath his eyelashes until the moment—triumph!—when her eyes flickered closed. He deepened the kiss quickly, let his hands roam her back to her shoulders and then to her hair, dragging his fingernails over her scalp until she shivered. Then he sent one hand downward to her thigh, pulling her tight against him. He eased her up onto the table and bent her back inch by inch, laving her jaw and her long neck with his lips as she slowly settled. He smelled lavender perfume at the base of her throat, a scent more heated and womanly as he trailed his hand over the curve of her breast.

“Quatre,” she moaned softly. “We can’t, not here…”

“They’ll never know.” He flicked open two buttons. Her bra was silky, and—God--red; her nipple hardened as he rubbed it through the fabric. Her cheeks were blushing when he glanced up, but her eyes stayed closed. She gasped when he opened his mouth against her breast, her back arching up to meet him. Her hand hovered at the back of his head, hesitating to hold him there.

Doubt assailed him, and he braced himself on the table with an elbow to look down at her. “Noin?” he said. “Uh—Miss Noin—“

Her eyes opened, and then she laughed. “I think you can call me Lucy now,” she said. A wicked smile curled her lips. “And if you don’t finish what you started, I am never going to forgive you.”

He was the one who blushed, then. “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed.

 

**

 

“You look like the cat that got the cream,” Duo observed. He dropped his lunch tray to the table and swung a leg over the bench.

“Oh, just had a good morning,” Quatre said.

 

**

 

“Bullseye,” Heero said, unnecessarily. There were three yellow-fletched darts lodged a half-inch deep in the dartboard. Clustered exactly in the bullseye.

Quatre frowned. “I still think you need a handicap.”

“There’s nothing in the rule book about being naturally better.” Heero pulled his darts free. “Another round?”

“I’ve lost enough money for the evening, thank you.” Quatre caught the bartender’s eye and waggled his empty glass. “You want one?”

“Sure.” Heero surrendered their darts to the next group waiting for the game, and he and Heero returned to their corner booth. “How has work been lately?” Heero asked. He was, after several years of practice, doing much better with small-talk.

“I’ve had Friday-itis all week,” Quatre confessed. “I need a good holiday. And we’re no closer to solving this yes-private-money-or-no-private-money problem.”

“Yes-private-money,” Heero said. “Aren’t you a private donor?”

“I’m on the Board of Directors,” Quatre defended himself quickly. “Founding member.”

“That’s different?”

“Well… it is now.”

Their drinks arrived, along with a fresh bowl of crisps. “I heard an interesting rumour,” Heero began, helping himself.

Quatre shifted on his seat. “I’m not really comfortable with gossip,” he said.

A tiny flash of a smile crossed Heero’s face. “I thought so.”

“You sound oddly satisfied.”

“It was a rumour about you,” Heero explained. “But it didn’t seem like something you would do.”

Quatre parsed that slowly as he broke a crisp into smaller and smaller crumbles. “Are you saying you think I’m predictable?”

“Am I saying that? No.” Heero swigged his beer. “But now that you have, I will acknowledge that you are. Predictable.”

“I am not.”

“It’s not a bad thing.” Heero swigged again, and put his bottle down. “I like predictability.”

“In an enemy, maybe.”

Heero considered that nuance. “Yes,” he allowed. “But it’s just the way you are. You’re a very nice person.”

Quatre ground his teeth.

He had ordered a soda. Now he wished he drank. It would have been a good time to drink.

“What was the rumour?” he asked suddenly.

“Hm?” Heero looked up from the crisps bowl, steadily emptying under their combined attention. “Oh. Une’s secretary was saying that she saw you and Noin come out of the second-floor conference room looking pretty dishevelled. She claims she asked Noin about it, and Noin told her that…”

Quatre sat up quickly. “That what?”

Heero pursed his lips. “That… No-one had slipped her gears like that in a long time.”

Well. Quatre felt a pleasant glow of pride at that. He should really take Noin out for dinner. Send her flowers at least. Maybe she liked roses.

“I told them it was ridiculous,” Heero said. “And not to spread lies. I doubt Noin would say anything like that anyway.”

He buried his face in his soda. “Better have,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Why is it ridiculous?”

Heero blinked. “Why is it ridiculous?”

“Why is it ridiculous that I might have—slipped her gears?”

Heero smiled uncertainly. “In the second-floor conference room? During the Appropriations meeting?”

“Right after, actually.”

Heero looked taken aback. “But—“

“Heero.” Where the daring came from, Quatre had no idea, but he reached across the booth and laid his hand on Heero’s wrist. It was, especially for the two of them, very intimate contact, a huge presumption across personal boundaries. Heero physically started and his hand clenched into a fist. “Sorry,” Quatre apologised quickly, already regretting it. He let go.

Heero’s hand spasmed. He hid it in his lap.

Oh, Quatre thought. Then— _oh_.

He held his breath as he slid off his shoe. He crept toe by toe across the wooden floor. He felt warmth a moment before he found Heero’s ankle. Heero jumped, and his leg disappeared.

“Hold still,” he said soothingly.

“What are you doing?”

He found what felt like a knee and followed it up. “Defending my newfound reputation,” he suggested. Oh, that was it. Heero flushed from neck to hairline and plastered himself against the back of the booth. Quatre had to slump to reach it, but he managed. Warmth, and a fleshy hardness that was definitely getting harder under the arch of his foot. Denims were definitely in the way.

It was harder than he thought it would be, first getting a solid hold on the zip tab between two toes, and then working it down. Heero didn’t seem to object to getting pawed and mauled a bit in the process, though. There was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and on his neck, visible down the collar of his shirt, when Quatre finally had it down. Quatre was a little breathless, himself, gripping the edge of his seat unconsciously. “Is this okay?” he whispered.

Heero glanced around the bar. They had a certain amount of privacy in their little corner. There was an acoustic band on the opposite side of the room, providing shelter of noise, distracting the rest of the crowd. Heero wiped his upper lip. He didn’t say ‘no’.

Quatre slipped down his seat and onto his knees. He ducked low and lifted the table cloth over his head. The underside of the booth was a little cave, only a slit of light at what was now mid-height showing a few shoes from nearby tables, a pair of boots by the darts wall. And Heero’s legs, splayed wide, his undone jeans, and a white cotton-covered bulge between the unzipped vee of dark pants.

Heero inhaled sharply when Quatre slid between his knees. Then, convulsively, his hands gripped Quatre’s head, and urged him down.

 

**

 

_“Mr Winner, call on line two from Senator Rosenthal.”_

“Thanks.” He picked up the receiver and cradled it between ear and shoulder. “This is Winner,” he said. “Senator, glad to hear from you.” He’d lost the thread of the email he was writing. He tried to scan backward through his paragraph and recover the thought.

_“Quatre, hello. Touching base on the query from Tuesday.”_

“Right. Thanks for being so prompt.” _\--securities requires a reconfiguration from at least mid-management level,_ he typed. “We’ve been chasing our tails on this funding issue.” _Ideally through lower management to promote industry-wide—_

_“I’ve been in contact with Benson. Look, Marshall Group don’t have an agenda here. I wanted to put in my support.”_

“They’re faith-based,” Quatre said absently. He lost his thought again. “I’m just not comfortable with that, Senator.”

_“Even people of faith have good ideas occasionally,”_ Rosenthal said sarcastically. _“And even people of faith support the Preventers’ mission.”_

“They should. Since they also fund a lot of the people we defend them from.”

_“That’s an unfounded accusation!”_

“It’s a generalisation, not an unfounded accusation,” Quatre corrected him. “Or there wouldn’t be three class-action law suits pending and two ongoing against so-called ministry groups whose donations bought arms for rebels and terrorists.” _Industry-wide standards and ethical mandates necessary for the progress of the—_ Damn. He really had no idea what he’d meant to write there.

_“You’re right, that_ is _a generalisation. A few bad apples—“_

“Were responsible for the deaths of our very valuable agents and a number of very innocent civilians whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re chiding the wrong person on this one, Senator. I’m sorry. I’m voting against accepting the donation from Marshall Group. I’m sure they’re wonderful people. But I won’t have Preventers beholden to or in any way associated with an agenda I can’t see in broad daylight.” He checked his watch. “And I’m sorry, but I’m late for a meeting, so you’ll have to excuse me. Thank you for calling.” He didn’t give Rosenthal a chance to protest. He hung up.

“I can’t believe you’re rich enough to talk to people like that,” a voice from his doorway said.

Wufei. They’d agreed to drive downtown together for separate meetings, and catch dinner on the way back. Quatre saved his half-written message and shut down his computer. “I am,” he said, “entirely rich enough.”

Wufei grinned at him. “If you keep turning down donations, you’ll have to fork over considerably more assets to keep this place running.”

“Not if you take an unscheduled pay-cut,” he teased. He stood and shrugged into his coat. “I’m ready.”

The parking garage was lonely. And hot. The colony weather division had obviously decided it was summer. “You driving or me?” Quatre asked as they boarded the lift.

“I’ll drive.” Wufei shook his keys. “Good day?”

“Fair. You?”

The doors slid shut and the lift began to rise. “Did you really go down on Heero in a bar?” Wufei asked.

Quatre turned red. “Excuse me?”

Wufei glanced at him, and chuckled indulgently. “Never mind. I apologise. That must have sounded awful.”

He had to talk to Une about the rumour mill in their building. “Who told you I did that?”

“Duo. He said Heero told him. Maybe he misunderstood.”

Not again. Quatre put his mental foot down. There was some—cosmic, karmic plan going on to provoke him. He could excuse himself with Noin; he’d had that daydream for a decade before he acted on it. And Heero—well, there was no however-flimsy excuse for that, except that he was getting very tired of people thinking he was some kind of walking monument to innocence and purity. Wufei was just being Wufei. There was nothing remarkable about that, nothing that demanded he do anything but stand very still and suffer silently and let it go—

“Or Duo was drunk,” Wufei said. He considered it. “Or concussed.”

“All right.” Quatre hit the Maintenance Hold button, and the lift halted with a jolt. “Now listen here. Why is everyone convinced that I spent my childhood—I don’t know, surrounded by nuns and chastity belts?”

“Ha!” Wufei actually pointed at him. “I knew it! You did it!”

Quatre spluttered speechlessly. “You—you were testing me?”

“I can’t believe you did that.” Wufei was unbearably pleased with himself. “Were _you_ drunk?”

Quatre put his hands on his hips. “For all you know, I go around giving b—giving—“

“Blow jobs,” Wufei supplied. “Head. Tearoom trade.”

His defiance was spoilt by the fact that he couldn’t actually say it aloud. He sighed, and let his hands fall back to his sides. “Shut up.” He released the Hold. They had an hour’s drive to the city at this time of day. It would feel like a year, if Wufei kept this up the entire way.

“Did you enjoy it?” Wufei asked salaciously.

He smacked the button before they’d risen more than four feet. The lift lurched to a stop.

“Did I enjoy it?” he repeated. Wufei was suddenly silent. Quatre reached out and carefully adjusted Wufei’s tie, centring the knot. He raised his eyes from it very slowly, and cocked his head. “I think,” he said casually, “that I was pretty damn good at it.”

His fingers were at Wufei’s throat. He felt Wufei’s heavy swallow.

“In fact,” he added, with a confidence coming from he had no idea where, “it might just have been the best _head_ Heero’s ever going to have.”

Wufei swallowed again. “Someone’s going to notice the lift is stopped,” he protested weakly. “They’ll send a maintenance crew.”

“Three o’clock on Thursday?” Quatre made a show of checking his watch. “Not for… oh, at least a half hour.”

“I—“

Quatre used the tie to pull Wufei closer. When their chests were pressed together, he stepped backward, twice, three steps, until his back met the handbar. Then he reversed them quickly. The tie slid free when he tugged sharply, and he used it to bind Wufei’s wrists to the rail securely.

“Quatre,” Wufei protested—but not loudly, and not very convincingly. Crushed to his back, Quatre could feel his rapid heartbeat and fast, shallow breaths.

He let impulse guide him. He licked the back of Wufei’s neck, right at the edge of that silly pigtail, and blew cool air. Wufei shuddered, and dropped his forehead to the metal wall. Quatre worked the hair elastic off, and rubbed his fingers through Wufei’s hair until it all hung free. It smelled good when he put his nose to it—something indefinably musky and Wufei, overlaid with shampoo, cool and coarse.

He reached his hands around to Wufei’s front. He smoothed Wufei’s shirt over muscular pectorals, down a flat, heaving stomach, and came to rest on a belt buckle. He took his time undoing it, watching Wufei’s eyes dart to the door time and again. He dropped ever so slowly to his knees and pulled Wufei’s trousers and undershorts with him, letting them settle to a pool of fabric around Wufei’s stockinged calves. His hands travelled back up, and he followed the path he made with his tongue. Crinkled knees flinched away and back into his mouth. Soft, silky body hair teased his fingertips and disappeared to perfectly smooth, walnut-coloured thighs; he kissed every inch of them. Dimpled buttocks flexed under his touch. Wufei groaned when he bit down, oh-so-carefully, on one round cheek. Quatre grinned.

 

**

 

“Quatre,” Une called. He turned from the coffee counter. She waved him near. He quickly added sugar and milk, and crossed the department floor to her office door.

“Do you have a minute to spare me?” she asked him, gesturing inside.

“Of course.” He manoeuvred his briefcase and cup past her as she held the door; she closed it after him, and drew her blinds. The room darkened considerably when she did, and she turned on her desk lamp as he settled himself on one of the chairs. “What’s up?” he asked.

“There is something considerably strange going on around here,” Une said. She took the edge of her desk, rather than a chair, perched so that he had to look up at her. She crossed her arms under her breasts. “And it seems, rather oddly, to be centred on you.”

Quatre sighed. “Doesn’t anyone keep their mouth shut about private things anymore?”

Her eyebrows climbed two entire inches. “It’s true?”

He shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny. “I… haven’t heard any of the rumours for myself…”

Une didn’t seem to know where to go from there. She could hardly lecture him; he was her boss, when it came down to it, though he would never presume to tell her so, in her own office especially. But he deserved a lecture, he could admit. “I shouldn’t use the workplace to—for—any kind of personal—thing,” he said awkwardly. “I promise, absolute best behaviour from now on.”

Une cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said. “I’m certain that will suffice to stop the—problem.”

“Yes.” He was blushing, damn it. He really was predictable. He rose. “Uh—was there anything else?”

“No. No. Manifestly no.” Une rose as well. “Thank you for your time. I’ll see you at the meeting at four.”

“Yes. Thanks.” Thanks? What was he thanking her for? Now that he’d gone considerable distance to convincing her he was an irresponsible idiot, Quatre gathered his things and turned to the door, intent only on escape.

“Quatre—Heero _and_ Wufei?”

He faced her again. “Yes,” he said, after a pause.

“I hardly know where to start,” she said. “Although—“

Her fingers fidgeted with the charm of her necklace nestled in her throat. He noticed it, suddenly. And the way it drew attention to the merest hint of cleavage in the demure cut of her dark suit. His mouth went dry.

 

**

 

Duo caught him rushing into his office, late for his eight o’clock conference call with L3’s branch. “Hey,” he said. “You okay? You’re all sweaty.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Duo held up both hands. “Whoa,” he protested. “Sorry.” Quatre hurried to his desk, dripping coffee from a spilling cup and missing a toss to his desk with a folder than went spraying its contents all over the floor. “Uh, you need some help with that?”

He halted in the increasing chaos, and closed his eyes. “I think I might be beyond help,” he said.

 

**

 

“You _still_ haven’t asked her out?” Wufei said. “So much for the famous dare-devil bravery.”

“You shut up!” Duo retorted. “I don’t see you asking out stunningly beautiful older women you work with. It’s not like it’s easy.”

Heero came back to their table with the new round of drinks. “Two lagers, one stout, one tequila sunrise… Here, Quatre.” He carefully set a glass of soda in front of Quatre. He didn’t quite meet Quatre’s eyes while he did it. He resumed his seat across the table. Quatre fiddled with his straw.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“She’s not that much older,” Trowa said, resuming their conversation. “And you have worked with her for years. It’s not like she doesn’t know you at all. That’s an edge right there.”

“Yeah, well, not enough of one. I don’t want to get humiliated.” Duo moodily sipped the head of foam from his stout. “Quatre,” he said suddenly. “What do you think I should do?”

Quatre blinked. “Me?”

“Yeah.” Duo broke into a wide smile. “Since you’re the expert around here.”

He knew he turned bright crimson. Duo laughed at his own joke. Then, slowly, Wufei joined in. Heero looked up, blushing. That made Wufei laugh harder, until Heero caught the amusement in it, too.

“Oh, shut up,” Quatre said. “All of you.”

“I’m missing something,” Trowa said.

“That’s what happens when you transfer,” Duo informed him. He winked at Quatre. “Our angel-faced friend here has made quite the name for himself around the office, this past month.”

“I heard Zechs Merquise in the basement supplies closet,” Wufei said.

Even Heero had a broad grin on now. “And Sally Po, after hours on the roof.”

“That’s not even the least bit true,” Quatre objected. “I’ve never been on the roof in my life.”

Wufei laughed so hard at that he couldn’t catch his breath.

“I hate you all,” Quatre muttered. He slouched in his chair. “Go on, yuck it up.” He waved at Trowa, who was frowning deeply at him. “Take your shot. Go ahead.”

“You slept with Zechs Merquise and Sally Po?” he asked.

“And Noin and Une,” Duo added helpfully. “And these two bozos.” He jerked a thumb at Heero and Wufei, who shared a mildly embarrassed glance.

“What about Duo?”

“Incurably straight,” Duo said. “Thank God.”

Trowa’s frown became a scowl. “Anyone else?” he demanded.

“I do have to work sometimes,” Quatre said. Trowa was making him nervous. “What?”

Trowa crossed his arms sullenly over his chest. “What am I, chopped liver?”


	42. Forty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Part of the Halloween Horror challenge. Readers submitted three challenge words and selected a fandom._
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> _For Alleyprowler. The words for this drabble: premature burials, fractions, and coal._

'Hey.' Duo nudged him with an outthrust hand. Heero took the foil-wrapped nutbar, to break off a piece. Duo passed it back, pressing it into Quatre's hand. Heero divided the rest between Duo and himself. It was dry and stale, sticking in his throat. He washed it down with a sip of their remaining water. Duo, ruthlessly practical, took only a fraction of Heero's meagre portion. Quatre passed it up, first, with a shake of his head. Duo insisted. He drained the bottle, and stowed it carefully in his backpack.

From long practise they were near to silent as three men on foot could be. The sun was wan and the chill penetrated much deeper in the alleys between tall brick buildings. Heero, in the vanguard, tried every door as they passed. Duo and Quatre rotated the rear, rifles at the ready, sweeping the street. Heero kept his pistol cocked, but aimed at the ground. None of them fired unless they had to. Bullets were as scarce as clean water, and they were dangerously low.

Nearly at the end of Gower Street he found a knob that turned under his hand. He signalled, and Duo jumped down the step to join him. They exchanged a nod, and Heero threw it open. Duo was moving in immediately, through the dark with a torch clenched between his teeth, its weak battery flicking off-on. 'Clear,' he called back, before he moved on to the stairs at the far wall. 'Headed up.'

Heero felt about him, making shapes out of the dim outlines lighted by the open door. That small aid all but vanished, when Quatre filled the jamb. Heero found a sink, a table. It was a basement-level kitchen. He opened every cabinet, removing items by feel and placing them at the ready on the countertop. A creak in the floorboards overhead froze him to the spot. A low whistle from above identified its maker as Duo. The all-clear. Heero helped Quatre barricade the door with stacked chairs.

'Check it out,' Duo murmured. 'Hard to believe no-one's picked this over yet.' He slung his rifle along his back and crouched at the foot of the wilted tree. He picked up a present, blowing away the coal-black dust that coated everything always. The package rattled when he shook it.

Quatre stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. 'What do you care?' Duo wondered. 'You're not Christian.'

'They were,' Heero nodded toward the tree.

Duo's thin cheeks sucked in. Then he shook Quatre off. The rip of the bright wrapping paper was muted, but Quatre flinched. 'It could be things we need,' Duo said, brutally flat. 'Things that aren't in the stores anymore. They'd dead and we're not.'

That was Duo's answer for everything. For the argument over burials. For the argument over medicine and stolen food and shooting on sight. For the argument over eating the meat. They're dead, Duo had said, sitting on Quatre and slapping him over and over, forcing him to swallow it. Quatre hadn't spoken a word since then, but he was alive.

The gifts were mostly for children. A remote-controlled car, a stuffed pony with a little plastic riding saddle and tiny string reins. Mittens too small for a grown man to wear, but the scarf and hat were one-size, thick good wool. Quatre turned his head away when Duo stood to wind it about his neck, brush his hair back over his ears with fingers that, soot-darkened, were still gentle. He was gone as soon as Duo released him, disappearing back down the stairs to the kitchen. Heero could hear him sorting through the pantry, tins clinking and clunking.

Duo tossed Heero a new coat, still tagged from Debenham's. Heero tried it on over his worn hoodie. It was a little small, but he could let the seam out of the arms and it would serve. He zipped it to his chin and chapped his hands. The fireplace was gas, not wood. But it was late, nearly dusk, and they wouldn't roam with darkness threatening.

'Check on him,' Duo said. 'Did you clear the knives?'

'Not yet.' He rubbed his palms together slowly. Duo was nearly through the presents, efficiently piling clothes to one side to be torn up for rags and discarding anything electronic or too large to carry or too sentimental to matter. A gold locket tumbled and rolled to the laminate, disappearing from sight.

'So what are you waiting for?' Duo lingered curiously on a book. It went aside, too, though his eyes lingered on it. 'Go clear the knives.'

He found Quatre with nothing more dangerous than a tin opener, sniffing oily-looking salmon past its expiry date. He tasted it cautiously and dropped it with a grimace. He found Heero watching him from the stairs, and turned his back.

Heero joined him at the table. It was still set for Christmas dinner, with gold mats and china decorated with bells and snowflakes. There was tinsel tied to each chair, bedraggled now, and sad. Quatre had already packed away a bag of rice and another of lentils. White potatoes and asparagus, old but probably palatable, peaked out from the pockets of his backpack. One of their few sterno tins was lit on the stovetop, beans and tomatoes and sardines heating. Wine, beer, and, best of all, bottled water.

'Thank you,' Heero said.

Quatre hunched one shoulder. He cracked the lid of green olives in brine. They smelled rotten, but he tried one anyway, and spat it back out in the sink.

The shuffle and wheeze brought them both to the alert. Quatre was ahead of him, muzzle aimed at the window as he knelt beneath it, Heero opening the frigerator door for shelter and hunkering down with the pistol balanced on its upper edge. One of Them. It sniffed around the window, shoes scraping on the pavement. It whined, softly. Shaking paws scraped at the screen, and then it went to its knees. Its face appeared, white eyes blinking owlishly. The press of its nose smeared through the ash on the pane, leaving streaks. It pressed its palm flat with a sudden smack, fingers splayed wide and strong.

They shot on sight, when feasible. If he fired now, Heero knew, he'd break the glass, leaving them vulnerable and making noise besides. They might make it to another empty house before nightfall, but not on this block, maybe not anywhere nearby. It didn't seem to know for sure if there were anyone inside. It might move on.

Quatre raised his hand. Heero straightened, tense. Quatre touched the window, his side of the same pane. He spread his fingers, his hand just a little larger than the one he mirrored. The glint of silver might have been a wedding ring. Quatre stared up at it, entranced, and Heero didn't know what to do, so in the end he did nothing.

And then the thing moved on, and the danger was gone, and Quatre sat back against the wall, his face drawn and blank and his mouth tight and silent, silent, silent.

He slept there, or stayed there, at least, unused rifle cradled in one elbow. Duo curled away from them under the table, and Heero wrapped himself in his new coat and put his back to the cabinets. Sometime after midnight, Quatre stirred. He pulled his blanket up over his head and lay down. Flat on the kitchen tile, he looked like a corpse awaiting burial. No-one had wasted that kind of mercy in nearly a year. But it didn't feel premature. If anything, far too late. Those things outside at least knew no better.

They burnt the place behind them as they left. It drew Them away from the streets, eliminated one more hiding place for the creatures, giving cover for a quick escape to another neighbourhood. The ash was thick in the air, colouring each of them a washed and featureless black. Heero glanced back for Quatre, and nearly overlooked him.

'Come on,' Duo said, and they left to start another day.


	43. Forty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Part of the Halloween Horror challenge. Readers submitted a fandom and three prompt words._
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> 
> _For Leslie. Her fandom was Gundam Wing, and her prompts are buzzing, cheap bungalows, and cryptic claw print._

The struggle goes on for at least a dozen thudding heartbeats. There's a crash, a yell. The impact of something sharp meeting flesh again, again, and again. None of that is as awful as the silence that follows after.

Hilde slides across the kitchen tile. Lukas is trembling, but his little tear-streaked face is stoic as she pries the cupboard open and presses him inside. When she gives him the knife, his small hand clenches bravely and holds it steady. She gives him a kiss-- she has to, if it might be the last thing he'll ever get from her. She cups his soft cheek and forces herself to close him in and leave him there.

From the kitchen she runs. Their cheap bungalow has thin walls, not enough furniture to hide behind. The flickering overhead light fails as she reaches the back door. She can't see anything outside, barely the outline of the shore, the slap of waves under a moonless night. There's no movement. No noise. But their car is out there, with the gun in the glovie. And Duo is out there, alive or dead, and either way she won't abandon him. She keeps to the outer edge of the steps but one still creaks with her weight, and she freezes. Years of battle have trained her to think through panic and adrenaline, but she's still not sure, not sure, not sure if that noise echoed, if it warned-- who it warned. She keeps the paring knife high, ready for vulnerable eyes, the butcher knife low, pointed up toward the belly and its tender organs.

She does encounter a body, though not one that attacks. It lays sprawled in the garden beneath the gently waving branches of the tamarind tree. Hilde crouches there, at her only avenue for flight, just as the wavering electrical in the bungalow bursts one last time to light and then dies. She blinks, momentarily blinded, cursing her stupidity for looking back. Her mouth is dry and tastes of acid. She feels along the body, identifying arms, shoulders, reaching for the braid that would tell her one way or another. But there is nothing there. She touches wet blood, a ragged open wound with deep cryptic punctures, like a... like an animal's claw, but there's no wild animal that big on a beach, is there? Her shaking hand travels from spine to shoulder, then air. She gags. The body is headless.

'Hils.' With a gasp she reares back, stands just in time to take the weight of the man who staggers out of the dark. 'Hils,' Duo breathes, grabbing her up and squeezing her too tight for the sobs that break her. She wraps her arms about him, clinging as he buries his face in her hair.

'You hurt?' she manages, patting him down, unsure. He shakes his head. He's freezing cold, his hands like ice. 'Lukas,' she says, and draws him up the stairs with her. He follows, each boot thudding on the wooden steps. She wants to hurry, doesn't want to leave him, though he's moving so slowly, a man at his limit. In the end she hurries away from him only when she reaches the kitchen, dashing forward a few feet around the island. 'Baby, it's me,' she warns, pulling open the cupboard. Lukas tumbles out into her arms and she snatches him up. 'Let's get outside,' she says thickly. 'We'll wait for the police outside.'

'Mummy!' Lukas squirms. His knife scratches at her, an accidental slice that loosens her hold. Lukas is on his feet and throwing himself between her and-- 'Run, Mummy, the bad man!' he cries.

Duo stares down at their son. In the light of the window, Hilde sees the blood she felt on his shirtfront, a body's worth of blood soaking him, but that's not what makes her scream. His eyes are white, no pupil at all, and his skin is mottled, moving, rearranging into someone that looks like her husband, hair coiling like snakes down his back and ragged bone jutting out where his fingertips should be.

'I got him, honey,' Duo says. There's an odd buzzing note to his voice but it's his, it's the voice she'd know anywhere. 'We're okay. We're safe.' He reaches for their son, claws flexing red-black.

Hilde lunges, but Lukas is faster. His knife slashes and cuts, and the thing that was his father whirls away with a cry of pain. Lukas jabs down, stabs out with all his might, and leaves his knife in Duo's thigh, embedded to the hilt. Hilde is taller, and too old to hesitate, and her mark more lethally chosen. She hits Duo simultaneously with both her knives, the jugular and the heart. The claws rake at her arm, leaving burning behind. But he goes down, sliding to a seat between tiled floor and wooden wall, propped upright by the cabinet to his left. His head falls to an odd angle and stops. He breathes out once, and no more.

Still cautious, she keep Lukas out of his reach, furious tears burning at her eyes that she refuses to acknowledge. The keys are in her purse and her purse is stashed below the bed; she grabs it and keeps them moving. They crash through the door, banging it closed behind them, and she flies down the steps, the garden gravel, the sand. Lukas pets her head as if to comfort her, as she rips open the cardoor and straps him in. She jams the keys into the ignition, teeth gritted til it starts. Only when she's wheeling out of the drive and speeding down the street does she spare a hand for the gun, racking a round in the chamber and taking off the safety.

'Your arm, mummy,' Lukas whispers.

She yanks at the flimsy sleeve of her cotton shirt, tearing it free. The press of the makeshift bandage to the scratches hurts far more than it should. The blood doesn't clot, doesn't stop. It's black on the cotton, not red.

She pulls to the side of the road when she can see the lights of the main hotel. She's shaking so badly Lukas has to help her, but they free him from the safety strap, and she leans over him to open his door. 'Go,' she tells him, and this time doesn't let herself kiss him, though the ache of need is the hardest thing she's ever done. 'I'll follow when it's safe.'

'Mummy.'

'Go, baby,' she says, and lifts her hand to his back as he runs away, swiftly disappearing into the night. She sits back to wait it out, her gun ready.

This time she wouldn't hesitate.


	44. Forty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts._
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> _This drabble is for ramenkuri, who opted for a Jane Austen request in place of Halloween horror. It went rather more toward Charlotte Bronte, but I tried..._

'Elinor is an orphan,' Quatre murmured. The mist of early morning deadened their voices before they could carry, draped the gardens with a sparkling fog that hid everything but shadows from sight. Courteously Quatre offered his arm at the small stone footbridge over the creek, but they paused at its apex, to look over the dark water. It reflected nothing, the tinkle and drip of its passage muted by the strange white chill that surrounded them. 'I didn't have much time with my sister Iraia,' Quatre said then, 'but she was very dear to me. I've had Ella with me for the past two years, and I would prefer to keep her near, but I'm afraid it's not a... stimulating environment for a young girl.'

'She's a bit younger than our other students,' Relena replied, delicately stretching that truth out of fondness for the man who grimaced in acknowledgement. Those who travelled the Sphere to attend her School of Pacifism were teenagers at least, many of them in their twenties even. Elinor was not yet in double digits. 'Surely she's already in school.'

Quatre hesitated over that one, covering for the awkwardness of the pause by making some show of helping her over the puddle at the far side of the bridge. His hands on her waist were gentlemanly, and Relena was too studied for a schoolgirl's blush, but they walked closer, after, their footsteps falling in time even as they slowed.

'Ella is headstrong,' Quatre admitted finally. 'And I suppose that's too much gloss on it. She's on the verge of running wild and I am at fault for failing to stop it. She's-- I adore her and she knows it. Even if she weren't my niece I'd be a poor disciplinarian. I remember too much what it was to grow up in the shadow of a parent who offered no affection and accepted none. I don't want that for Ella. I want her to know she's loved and that she'll always have a place in my world. But...'

'But you also know that you owe your own accomplishments to the rigour of such an upbringing,' Relena finished. 'I understand that very well.'

'I rather thought you might.' He smiled for her, with sympathetic warmth that produced small crinkles at the corners of his eyes, deepened the lines about his mouth. 'Sometimes I suspect the arc of history,' he said. 'It bends a little too much toward repetition to be coincidental. I understand my father much more these days. He thought he was making a better world, too. I wonder if he worried as much as I do about having enough time.'

'He did,' Relena said gently. 'Every parent does.' She was reluctant to lay her hand upon his wrist, but let herself do it, and resigned herself to the answer she knew she had to give. 'Perhaps the winter term,' she suggested. 'There are fewer students. Elinor and I will have time to get to know one another.'

Heero found her beneath the shady branches of her favourite tree some time later. Quatre had gone shortly after their conversation concluded, and Relena, despite her duties and her ever-growing task list, had found herself reluctant to return to work. Heero brought a basketed brunch prepared by some kind cook from the kitchens, and a wool wrap that had surely been forced on him by Miles Pargan. Heero only held it out, at first, then shook it from its folds and draped it about her shoulders. Relena thanked him, downcast.

'It will rain,' he predicted, sitting himself beside her.

'You always say that, and it never does.'

He shrugged. 'If I stopped saying it, one day it would do.' He leant back on his elbows, putting his head just behind her, requiring her to twist to look at him, and she refused. His low voice teased her ear, floating near on the cool breeze. 'Quatre said you agreed.'

'I did.'

'I'm sure he's grateful.' At her side his fingers moved, prying open the basket and examining its contents. He plucked a grape from its stem, rolling it between two fingertips. 'Is that why you did it?' he asked. 'For his sake?'

'Do you want me to say that I did?' Relena wondered. 'Would that be easier for you to accept?' He was silent, and she nodded to herself. 'Of course it would.'

'Relena.'

'He's a friend and I'm sure his concern for the girl is legitimate. I imagine sometimes what I would be if there hadn't been a war. I'd be married, I'm sure, to some boffle-headed noble or wealthy heir... I'd have pretty children of my own by now. I'd be ever so occupied with balls and charities and my husband's stature...' She pressed her lips together. 'For her sake I'm glad Quatre wants more for her than my father wanted for me. But I didn't do it for her and I certainly didn't do it for Quatre. You told him to ask me, didn't you.'

'Relena,' he said again, as if it were a mystical enchantment, a magic word with hidden meaning.

The fog heralded early snow, she thought, not rain, and pulled the wool wrap close with a shiver. There was a thermos of hot coffee in the basket, and she took it to warm her hands, resting her chin on its lid. 'You truly love him so much you'd throw this girl away to get him to yourself.'

'Relena.' He sat up, his fingers overlapping in a painfully tight grip on her wrist. 'That's not what this is about.'

'Isn't it?' she pressed, inviting the implied danger to full confrontation. 'You may not have spoken of your attachment but it's plain to anyone with eyes. He's no different than me, Heero. He has family and obligations and ideals. Principles, if you'd rather. About his place in the world. His duty toward it. We don't have your freedom. You think that's what you're giving him, taking away this problem, but it doesn't vanish just because it's out of sight.'

His head turned away. His grip slackened, slowly, and then convulsively he released her. 'Then what do I do?'

'You start with honesty,' she said sadly. 'And you let him make a mess of things. When he misses Ella, let him bring her home.'

He didn't ask it again, thus never obliging her to confess why she'd agreed. She'd done more and would do more again for Heero, but never thought herself fully immune to the small hurts each encounter left behind. After all, it was as purely her own fault as Heero's. She'd never left him alone with his own mistakes, rescuing him time and again. And she would never take her own advice. Heero wouldn't come back to her on his own, and she was too proud to ask for it. Maybe Quatre would be worthier.

Heero's boot knocked her slippered foot as he settled, tailor-style, beside her. She shared a corner of her wrap as a gust of wind, grey with icy promise, tossed their hair. Beneath the tartan blanket he shared the stem of grapes. The first one she tasted was sour. She didn't press her luck in the hunt for sweet.


	45. Forty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Part of the Halloween Horror challenge. Readers submitted a fandom and three prompt words._
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>  
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> _Octavius_x requested Gundam Wing/X-Men and the prompts "Chandeliers, mask"._

A long finger speared Prado's notepad just a breath before his pencil scratched the margin. 'Ooooh,' someone whispered behind him, and snickers erupted from the rest of the class.

Professor Winner stood above Prado's desk with one yellow brow arched. 'Care to share?' Winner asked him, deceptively mild.

It never occurred to Prado to disobey. His reluctance was based purely on anticipated humiliation. But when Winner tugged the notepad away from him, Prado let it go, slumping low at his desk and futiley burying his face in his hands.

'Revenant,' Winner read aloud. 'Spectre. Wyld. Masque. Am I reading these aright? Potential pseudonyms, Mr Prado?'

Ruby Brinkman was outright laughing at him. Prado rubbed heated cheeks. 'No, uh, yes, Professor,' he muttered.

'Those are already taken,' Winner said. He tore the sheet from Prado's pad and carried it with him back to the chalkboard. He began to write them in slanting block letters, the chalk stabbing and screeching across the slate. 'Points for picking a theme, I suppose, but none for creativity. Who can remind the class of the exploits of these former graduates? Ms Seymore?'

Katie lowered her hand and sat taller in her seat, beaming at being selected. 'Professor, Wyld claimed to be a son of Raven, apparently created when her teleportation altered his dimension. Spectre had something to do with the New Canaanites--'

'Clan Chosen,' Seiji Konno corrected.

'You're both correct,' Winner replied, wrapping off his writing and facing the class again. 'Jon Spectre was one of millions of mutants who lost his abilities during the events of M Day.' He paused there, chin high. 'Mr Prado, you are familiar with M Day?'

Prado swallowed. 'Yes, Professor. The Decimation. Only a couple hundred mutants survived.'

'Correct.' Winner folded Prado's paper, dragging forefinger and thumb along the crease over and over. 'Ours was once a vivid and diverse population. Very few living remember M Day, but it can be and is usually considered the genesis of the Newtype era. You, my students, are the descendants of a holocaust event. And if you want to survive long after receiving your diplomas, you'd be best advised to pay attention during class and not waste my time with silliness.' He dropped the paper on Prado's desk. 'You'll gain some ridiculous nom de plume when you actually accomplish something.'

For all it was spoken with Winner's usual clipped indifference, it plunged the class into deathly quiet. Prado swallowed.

'For your quiz tomorrow,' Winner said. He retrieved his chalk and in one long stroke marked through the names on the board. Beside it he scratched out page numbers from their textbooks. 'Review Pilot Supplement Applications and be prepared as well for a section on Medical; your scores have been low and we're not ending the term til I'm satisfied each of you can at least treat mid-flight vertigo. For History Studies please concentrate on--'

'Professor Winner?'

His writing paused. He turned. 'Yes, Mr Prado.'

'Did you ever have name? A Newtype name.' His daring earned him wide eyes from his classmates. And both Winner's brows coming to a single frowning line between his eyes-- a sure sign of the apocalypse. Prado rubbed sweat from his upper lip, but followed through on his reckless plunge. 'You piloted the first sentient Gundam,' he said. 'What'd they call you? The others?'

'Sir?' Katie asked timidly.

Winner opened his mouth, and shut it. His shoulders moved as if with a deep breath, but his face seemed oddly frozen. 'Page 497 of your text on the Colony Wars,' he said. 'Class dismissed.'

Prado was not the only one who stayed in his seat, flipping pages. But he was the only one who noted Winner's quiet exit through the back.

'This is the index,' Ruby observed. 'Why'd he tell us to read the index?'

Katie found it first, back in Chapter Thirteen. She jumped up, excited, and ran to Prado's desk with the book. 'Look! Right here.'

''Heartbreak',' Prado read. Asher looked impressed, a rare feat from the laconic teen, and Seiji at his side looked disappointed. 'Heartbreak,' Prado repeated, wondering at it. 'Not really a warrior name.'

'Sounds sad,' Katie said.

The bell clanged. Those who had not already left rose to their feet. Prado hooked his bag over his shoulder and led his friends into the corridor outside. The Greymalkin Centre would empty out, shortly-- only a few staff members lived on site, and the students bore no identifying badges or totems to indicate their attendance here. They were marched out through weapons detectors by guards armed with guns, soldiers who might as well have been the automatons who stocked the hidden bunkers beneath the main floors. One day the students would be pilots, and one day soon-- very soon for the graduating class-- they'd be assigned a Gundam, and they'd be flying formation in the Sentinel Programme. Every Newtype made it out at least once. The ones who made it back were fewer in number.

'Mr Prado.'

He stepped out of queue automatically, looking for the source of the call. 'Professor Winner?'

'Join me.' Winner gestured, and Prado had the unexpected privilege of jumping the queue, ushered out without more than a cursory glance into his bag. Winner held the door for him, and then they were outside, headed not toward the train platform but toward the off-limits staff-only area. 'Yes, I mean for you to come with me,' Winner said, anticipating his protest. He pressed his palm to the sensor beside the door, and it slid wide for them. 'And no. You're not in trouble.'

Prado grinned uneasily. 'Um, sir, sorry about disrupting class.'

'I don't mind daydreaming. A boy your age has much to dream about.' Winner led on, Prado looking around curiously. So far it wasn't any more interesting than the public side of the Centre. Ornately decorated corridors with fine gilded art that all looked oddly similar, only the occasional marker to distinguish one bronze door from the next. 'But you're not just a boy,' Winner said then. 'You're a Newtype. You will have burdens other boys don't, and responsibilities.'

'Yes, Professor.'

'Don't parrot what you think I want to hear,' Winner said wearily. They reached whatever destination he was searching for, and Winner pushed in. He caught the electricity, throwing the small closet into dim blue relief. 'Inside, please.'

It was a Record Station. Each cabinet had a meticulous label. Prado leant on one as Winner rifled through drawers. 'Um, can I help?'

'Please. I thought it was in the "B"s, but it might be under "M". Try "Masque".'

'I knew about Spectre and Wyld,' Prado said, pulling open a drawer to search. 'Didn't know there really was a mutant named Masque.'

'Not a Mutant, and not a Newtype either.' Prado found it, and Winner took it. His face was oddly still, looking down at it. He opened it for Prado. The photograph atop the file was of a young man, younger even than Prado was, and the death notice beside it read _AC 199_.

'He died in the Colony War?' Prado asked.

'Your grasp of history is probably looser than I thought,' Winner sighed. 'The Colony War ended in--'

'AC 196,' Prado said sheepishly. 'Sorry, Professor.' He cleared his throat. 'He was one of the original Pilots, like you? Gundam Heavyarms,' he read.

'He would have been utterly appalled by this place. Rosewood panelling, crystal chandeliers. Children playing at school. We're supposed to prepare you for war, though we're not allowed to call it that.' Winner looked off into the middle distance, drawn and silent. Only when Prado shifted on his feet did Winner look back. 'War isn't glamourous,' he said, 'or entertaining, or fun. The Sentinel Programme is just one more way to put some people on top and others beneath a boot. You're a Newtype, Mr Prado. You were born with a gift. Certain people want to use your gifts. They'll give you a Gundam and tell you whom and when to shoot. And if you refuse, they'll raise the spectre of M Day. Our kind have been wiped out before.'

'What do you... what do you want me to do?'

'I want you to think,' Winner said. 'And I want you to listen. I'm trying to teach you that. When you graduate, you'll be a Sentinel. Who are you really protecting?'

'You're not-- you're not telling me not to fight, are you?'

'You don't have that choice,' Winner said sadly. He tapped the picture in the file. 'One way or another, they take that choice from you. I'm telling you to choose _how_ you fight.'

Outside, the bell clanged again. Everyone had to be out by six, back to the City before Curfew. Prado chewed at his lip as Winner restored the file to its place, escorted him back to the corridor, back toward the public halls. Just when Winner would have unlocked the secured passage, however, Prado asked him, 'Professor?'

'Yes?'

'You keep saying "they". You mean the government, or something?'

Winner looked at him. Then his gaze slid sideways, along the marble floors, up the spiral staircase beyond to the Grand Hall. Greymalkin Centre had one of the only pieces left, framed in gold and protected behind bullet-proof glass; the original motherboard of ZERO's artificial intelligence processor.

'Not the government,' Winner said. 'The Gundams.' He breathed. 'Go home, Mr Prado. Please be on time tomorrow.'

'Good night, sir,' Prado said, suddenly troubled and unsure. But Winner turned his back and went back the way they'd come, and Prado was spotted by one of the guards, who called him back in line. Prado hesitated, but then found Ruby had waited on him, and he hurried to catch up with her. She had the new _Stake Land_ comic, and it wasn't long before he shook off Winner's strange discomfiting mood. By the time they were seated on a train reading it together, he'd forgot all about Heartbreak and dire warnings.


	46. Forty-Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Part of the Halloween Horror meme. Readers chose a fandom and provided three prompts._
> 
>  
> 
> _For waterlilyf, who asked for "Gundam Wing, obviously!" with prompts "bats, purple and silver"._

'Treize.' His uncle had large hands, veins like thick blue rope beneath loose and age-spotted skin. Blunt fingertips curled tightly to Treize's shoulder. 'I'd like you to come with me, please.'

'Of course, your Grace.' Treize swung his legs over the bench as his schoolmates made room for his exit. The dining hall was elegant tonight, newly hung with fresh-smelling greens for the holiday season. The junior officers who lined the two tables at the front hall were respectfully silent as Duke Dermail passed, though whispers floated after them as they departed. The Superintendant and Commandant were deep in conversation when his uncle led him by the Head Table, looking up only to nod at Dermail. Treize was only a student, and went duly ignored. The server who arrived with a new bottle of wine was greeted with far more enthusiasm.

Dermail didn't speak again til they had left the dining hall and stepped out into the cool corridor. Here the winter chill penetrated, ancient marble leeching away all the good warmth from the great hearth locked away behind them. It was cold as a cave, and very nearly as dark. The flutter of some banner or pennant could have easily been bat wings, flapping in the dark; Treize smiled at his own fancy. The rap of their boot heels was far more menacing.

His uncle said, 'You will be polite. You will be accommodating. If he tells a joke, you will laugh.'

'As you wish, Uncle.' The hand on his shoulder had yet to leave. Treize asked, 'And for whom?'

'A friend.' They closed out a hallway and turned down the broad spiral staircase that would lead them to the lower levels. 'More precisely, someone who could be a friend to our cause. If we give him reason to be.'

Hence Treize. He was an ambassador for many causes, but only one ever called on his talents in the dark of night in hidden rooms. He had time to prepare himself, mentally, the required switch from young but blooded soldier to bargaining chip. He was at his most persuasive when he could argue with passion removed from emotion. He had plenty of practise, these days. Their secret war would not be secret much longer.

But to Treize's surprise it was not some dank basement to which they strode. It was a car, awaiting them at the loading dock. A driver in anonymous uniform opened the door as they approached. Treize inclined his head to the young man, who remained blank-faced. Treize waited for his uncle to precede him, but Dermail only came to a halt. His hand dug hard into Treize's shoulder.

'I know I can count on you,' he said.

'Of course, Uncle,' Treize replied. 'I do my best.'

'I know you do.' Dermail hesitated, his craggy face darkening at the eyes. But only for a moment. He gazed off over Treize's head. 'Go along,' he said. 'I'll speak to you tomorrow.'

'You're not coming?' Treize snapped to attention and saluted. 'Then good night, your Grace.'

The car was richly upholstered in purple velvet. Treize slid uncomfortably across the bench, slipping a little before catching himself. He recovered by offering his hand to the man who sat across from him. Silver-haired, pale-skinned, in contrast to the richness of colour all around him. Cool fingers grasped his.

'Good evening,' Treize said, taking the lead as the driver closed them in. Treize noted the presence of a dark-tinted privacy screen between the cab and the front. When the car started and began to roll, there was almost no sound, their isolation complete. Automatically Treize checked for microphones, but that danger was a given. Dermail sent him into danger every day, one way or another, and if Treize went down for him, he would do it with dignity. 'I am Junior Lieutenant Treize Khushrenada,' he introduced himself, and did not ask for a name in return. 'Perhaps we might talk.'

The gentleman, if that was what he was, gazed at him as if he were a curious species of creature at a zoo. The hand was dry, but deeply smooth, almost like a kid glove, though Treize could clearly see manicured nails that gleamed like glass. His face was an oval of white, the jaw utterly free of stubble, the hairs of his eyebrows few and well-groomed. There was a small bump in his nose, a line otherwise unbroken from sloping forehead to pointed chin. The mouth was small, unlined, and cruel.

'How old are you?' the man asked, and even his voice was without inflection, bland and instantly forgotten.

Treize inhaled to steady himself. The car was turning. He couldn't see out the windows, but he knew by feel they had taken the unpaved path through the woods beyond the Academy. They spun on snow, now, the same snow that had left small brief spots of damp on his sleeves, his shoulder. He did not brush it away, he did not fidget. 'Seventeen, sir,' he answered.

'Ah. You are a man, then.'

'I think perhaps my uncle would not agree.'

That won him the ghost of a smile. 'Your uncle sends you to me,' the man said quietly. 'He believes you man enough for that.'

Ah. It would not be the first time Dermail had sent him in unaware. His uncle had a delicate temper and disliked such messy issues. They never spoke of it, and Dermail had perfected a long stare that overlooked bruises, the marks of teeth. Treize had learnt to overlook it as well. Passion free from emotion. There would be time after their war to settle debts.

The man put out a hand, this time, and this time Treize accepted it. Cool fingers which turned his wrist this way and that, traced the tendons, made small circles over his knuckles. When he tugged, Treize left his seat, and took the corner open on the man's bench. A thumb on his pulse, pressing in. When the nail nicked his skin, Treize inhaled sharply, but bit his tongue, and smiled.

When he awoke, he was in his bed. Bewildered, he sat up, reaching for the light. Immediately his bunk was thrown into orange relief. Vingt, his bunkmate, stirred and rolled away from the light. Out the window it was dawn, lavender on the settled snow. Treize stared at it, uncomprehending. He'd been in the car, hadn't he? He remembered the car... but everything that had happened in it was a dark blur.

He was unbearably thirsty. He rose on shaking legs to fill the glass by the sink with glass after glass of cold water, and at last he felt steady he splashed his face and drenched his hair. A twinge in his neck made him wince. He examined his throat with probing fingers, and found the source of hurt. Two small puncture wounds. How odd. He hadn't shaved in two days at least, not yet old enough to need it daily, and he didn't recall nicking himself.

As promised, Dermail was there at breakfast, waiting for him outside the dining hall. Treize parted from his fellows as the crowd pushed in, and followed his uncle to a window where Dermail could have his morning pipe. Treize attempted to light the match against the box, but his hold was still weak with the odd chill that had overtaken him in the night. Dermail steadied him and did it himself.

'You're pale,' Dermail noted.

'Sir,' Treize replied. He would eat a large meal and take it easy in classes, and that would have to do for treatment. Weakness was not tolerated in the Academy, least of all by himself. 'Your friend,' he inquired, soft enough that the sound of rambunctious teenagers laughing and stamping their way to the morning repast would cover their conversation. 'I hope he was pleased.'

'I believe so,' Dermail said. A cloud of smoke sifted between his lips. Treize cracked the window open. The pane of glass was freezing on his palm, and he shivered.

'What did he have?' Treize asked, idle curiosity. 'Money, I presume? Secrets?'

'Weapons,' Dermail answered him shortly. 'He and others like him. Weapons... weapons who will do better on our side than our enemies.'

'If the price is right.'

'Everything has a price.' Dermail exhaled a breath that smelled like clove tobacco. He brushed his wizened hand over Treize's hair, catching the cowlick he'd never been able to control. 'I must be going,' he said. 'I'll return soon.'

'When you have another friend for me to meet,' Treize said.

'Soon.' Dermail's grey lips moved in something sad. 'It will be worth it, Treize. I swear that.'

'And I believe you, Uncle.'

Treize seated himself at the table for junior officers, accepting a porcelain cup and saucer, filling it with coffee, half again with cream. His hand trembled, and again a sweep of dizziness crawled over him and left him cold and empty.

'Khushrenada.' Lars von Mahler bent to retrieve a fallen kerchief, and placed it beside Treize's right hand. 'Dropped this. You have a lover you want to tell the rest of us about?'

'One behind every curtain,' Treize answered drily. He flipped the kerchief. 'Not mine.' There were initials embroidered on the lace edge, as had been the fashion in times long past. They meant nothing to him, belonged to no-one he knew. 'Annette,' he called, beckoning to the woman who brought their table a tray of toast racks. 'Perhaps one of the women have lost this. Could you ask in the kitchens?' He folded it to pass it to her, and that was when he felt the small bump beneath the linen. He shook it out.

A lock of silver hair, bound with a purple ribbon. The edge of the ribbon was crusted and strange. Treize turned it to the light. The stain was blood-red.

'Lieutenant?'

'Mine after all,' he said. 'I had forgot. A gift from my uncle.' He folded the lock away from view, casual til he was sure everyone was preoccupied and had not noticed it. He tucked the kerchief into his breast pocket. 'Annette,' he asked her. 'Sugar, please, for the coffee.' He touched the cravat at his neck, tugging the winding cloth higher. The small wounds throbbed, suddenly. He swallowed with difficulty. 'And a steak, please, with two eggs. Three. Thank you.' He covered the two small spots with fore and middle finger. Touched the lock hidden at his breast, and wondered.


	47. Forty-Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An assortment of drabbles, shorts, vignettes, and circular-roaming half-starts.

'Spicy,' Duo said. He licked his spoon. 'Not overpowering. I like it. What do you think?'

Heero poked his plastic spork at the reddish lump in his paper bowl. 'I think the soured cream was out in the sun all day,' he said.

Mayor Tankersley frowned in his direction. Duo swayed into frame to lean between them and take a glass of sugary lemonade from the table, deliberate distraction, and not the first time he'd done it. It had been necessary at the Home Baked Pie Contest and the Home Brewed Brewskie Contest and it would likely be necessary at the Home Hawg Barbeque Contest, as well as the Home Stewed Chili Contest they were currently judging. So far as Heero could discern, the people of Sugarloaf, Oregon had too much time to spend at home thinking up recipes to inflict on their neighbours.

'Votes in, ladies and gentlemen,' Alderwoman Hunziker called, and Duo scratched his out on the notecard he held and, unasked, wrote one for Heero as well, folding them crisply in half. He collected the votes in his upturned hat and carried them to the small stage by the statue of the grimacing Founder John, some ancestor in wig and tailcoat who gazed out over a milling audience of oblivious townsfolk enjoying a summer festival too stuffed with unrelated events to actually reflect its supposed purpose, Reunification Day.

Duo was speaking softly into the shoulder comm of his uniform as he returned. His free hand fell, unconsciously, Heero thought, to the gun strapped at his waist, but he only tapped his fingers along the butt. He nudged Heero as he came to a halt, about-facing to scan the crowd. Heero glanced down to see his hand still on the gun. 'Trouble?' he asked, or stated, but Duo only glanced at him and shook his head.

The Mayor was blowing into the microphone and calling for attention, a request none of the five dozen families lounging on blankets across the town green minded in any way, and stuttered through a speech that windingly and unnecessarily described the events of the first Reunification Day seven years ago. Heero had been there-- Duo had been there, for that matter, but didn't wince at the inaccuracies as Heero did. There was a scattering of freckles across Duo's nose now. A slight pink tinge of sunburn on his cheekbones, like a woman's rouge. It made his eyes especially bright.

Heero drank a full cup of lemonade to banish the dry taste from his mouth.

'If it's miserable,' Duo said, as the Mayor finally segued to introductions of various town notables, 'we can head out after the game. I need to check in at the station.'

'Sheriff Maxwell,' the Mayor called then, and Duo lifted a hand to the turning heads of the crowd. 'Monitoring closely for bribes in the food contests,' Tankersley joked feebly, and Duo just smiled his ready smile, the one that never made it to his eyes. 'We have several war veterans here with us today, don't we, Sheriff? All of you vets take a bow. Let's hear it for our warriors!'

The applause was surprisingly thorough. The red on Duo's cheeks went deep. His mouth was tight, the smile strained. Heero didn't smile. He hooked his small finger through Duo's, to pull him away from the gun. Duo let go with a spasm.

'We owe a debt of gratitude to those who brought us to the peace we enjoy today,' the Mayor intoned seriously. 'Now get those cheers going, Loafers, I want them to hear us out in the Colonies!'

'Stay with me,' Heero said, and Duo looked at him once, sharpish. Then, abruptly, he nodded. Heero clapped. Duo's palms met, twice, no sound at the impact, but the set of his shoulders eased, just slightly. Heero could feel it when he leant up against Duo's side, sun-warmed beige of Duo's uniform shirt against his bare arm.

'Now to the important business,' Tankersley called out. 'Let's find out who won! First prize is amazing, folks, we've got a beautiful specimen from Hamish Hardware--'

Duo donned his wide-brimmed hat. Heero followed a step behind as he edged toward the tent, then around the far side of the Voters League and the Brownies display, past the Puppy Play Square and the Petting Zoo manned mostly by irritable goats, and Duo yanked open the door of the squad car parked at the kerb and slid into the driver's seat. He was fiddling with the radio when Heero sat in the passenger's.

'You should see Christmas,' Duo muttered. 'We do all this shit again, except it's freezing your balls off with Santa Claus.'

'Something to look forward to,' Heero answered laconically. Duo's eyes came up, met his. 'If I'm invited,' he said.

Their hands settled together on the manual shift. Duo's hand was hot, almost burning. His grip was tight, and Heero tightened his til their bones creaked, and Duo sucked in a deep breath through the nose.

'Yeah,' Duo said. 'You better not leave me to face it alone again.'

It was a question, not a command. Heero's nod was a promise. Duo's eyes didn't trust, not yet. But the grip of his fingers was solid and pleading and said everything else.

'I've got to throw the first pitch at the game in an hour,' Duo mumbled then.

'You better practise first,' Heero told him. 'I've seen you throw. You don't want to knock out a bystander.'

'Screw you,' Duo said amiably, and his grin sent a swift kick through Heero's gut. Duo's eyes drifted over him, lingered just a moment on his lap. 'It's my turn anyway,' he said then, and let Heero go, swung out the vehicle to the grass, and walked away with a strong jaunty stride. Heero watched him go, and not for the first time in his life damned baseball anyway.


	48. Forty-Eight

Treize stirred when his companion reappeared on the south-facing balcony. He winced to himself even as he thought it; he would never be used to the lack of magnetic north in the colonies, the absence of such indicators of direction. The last of the bell-tones were fading into the artificial sunset. Beneath the balcony that faced what had been designated east, he knew, worshippers were rising from their crouch in the sand, gathering about each other in the dust to talk. In the city, just visible along the curve of the colony, the faithful would be shaking out their limbs and laughing to each other, chattering idly as they returned to their homes for the night.

Kadar Winner came to a halt some feet away from Treize. ‘If you will accompany me,’ he said, in that voice of almost clinical attachment that Treize remembered from the many years of their acquaintance. Treize turned on his heel, listening for the crunch of that ever-present sand beneath his sole and getting a slight rasp. He trailed Kadar through one of many arches littering his desert palace like so much architectural garbage, thankfully noting the absence of the many lackeys who had surrounded them since his arrival a few hours earlier.

‘I dearly hope aliens never attack during prayers,’ Treize said aloud. ‘It would be inconvenient if the entire colony were caught unaware.’

It was meant to be a joke. It didn’t sound funny, even to himself. Kadar, not a man known for his humour, most certainly didn’t take it as one. Treize stopped immediately when Winner whirled about to face him, and was careful to look vaguely ashamed of his poor attempt at lightening the mood of their meeting. He got a long, appraising look for it, and had to hide a sigh when Kadar seemed to accept his sincerity.

‘Not all of us have abandoned God,’ the prince replied into that long pause. His blue eyes were keen in his pale face. ‘But then, that is why the colonies were built,’ he continued flatly. ‘To provide a haven for those who were no longer welcome on Earth.’

‘I believe history records the parting of brother from brother rather more kindly,’ Treize countered.

The older man turned abruptly away from him, leading him onto a wide portico lining a broad square filled to bursting with an exotic desert garden. The hem of Kadar’s white thoub fluttered about his shined black shoes as he strode in that oddly rigid way of the desert royalty. ‘Your Western democracies preach religious tolerance,’ Kadar said, not even turning his head back to see if Treize was listening. Assuming, with that princely arrogance, that he was. Treize found himself smiling as he followed at an appropriate distance. ‘I see no evidence in history or in the present that this is a truth. You claimed the separation of the Church from the State even as you destroyed our ability to pray in public, to elect leaders who spoke the only the language of faith. In the name of tolerance you destroyed the separation that made it possible for us to live in communities of the faithful. It was the uniqueness and the isolation of our peoples that allowed us to live in ‘tolerance’ of each other. Your democracies did not consider that when they poached our land and our governments, inviting in your corporations to write us new constitutions endorsed by your God, not ours.’ They reached their destination; Kadar Winner faced him with a little swirl of his robe, his hands clasped tightly behind him, his face expressionless. ‘We came to the colonies to regain our sovereignty,’ Treize was told.

Treize inclined his head to acknowledge the argument, not its validity. ‘Was there ever a time,’ he asked gravely, ‘when that word– sovereignty– was not at the heart of our conflicts with each other?’

Again, he had the feeling of being swallowed, weighed, and rejected. Without even a flicker of response, Kadar brushed aside the gauzy hangings over the archway and entered a dim, rounded room. They were in one of the corner turrets, Treize recognised, forced to follow again. He was waved negligently to the boxy cushions in the centre of the room, where Winner was already sinking bonelessly onto his side, propped by an elbow. Treize, suddenly made ridiculous in his stiff Romafeller fashion, could only look awkward as he sat far more stiffly, struggling with his tall leather boots, his sword, and the long tails of his coat, immediately trapped beneath his seat. Throughout the process of adjusting, Winner never looked away, not even when he reached for the hose of an elaborately decorated hookah, lifting the mouthpiece to his lips and sucking lazily.

When Treize was as comfortable as he could be, Winner lowered the pipe, and two slender streams of smoke left his nostrils. ‘Sovereignty,’ he said, ‘is the right to the proper worship of Allah. The Alliance have yet to show that it understands this very important fact.’

‘We are not our ancestors,’ Treize said with all the aplomb he could muster. ‘The Alliance will not make the same mistakes. Has L4 been invaded? Have your people been issued demands?’

Winner inhaled from the hookah again. The spicy scent of its smoke wafted about Treize, making his eyes water slightly. ‘The sanctions,’ the prince said after a long pause.

Treize spread his hands. ‘Can be lifted.’

Kadar played absently with the hose, blowing smoke onto his own pale fingers. ‘I think it is very significant that they were put in place to begin with.’

‘We were not dealing with your leadership at that time.’

The prince slammed the hose to the floor, though the slap was much cushioned by the deep carpets they lay on. ‘And yet I have been in power for nearly five years and this is the first hint of negotiation? A military underling!’ He rose sinuously to his feet, pacing to the window with his hands in that hard clasp behind his back again, as if he might wave his arms about wildly without strict control. Treize watched cautiously as Winner gathered his composure again, his straight shoulders somehow easing without ever slumping. When the tall man faced him again, his face was as calm as ever.

‘You come to intimidate,’ he said levelly. ‘You enter my home with no ability to affect the relationship between my people and yours, only the tantalizing hint that accommodations can be made. My ancestors gave you oil, Colonel Khushrenada. My ancestors died under volleys of your so-called ‘friendly’ fire. What do I have that your people want so dearly now?’

Treize surprised him with equal bluntness. ‘Your mines,’ he said, courteous and quiet. ‘We want your mines.’

‘To fight a war,’ Kadar elaborated. ‘To subdue my sister colonies.’

‘Would it make a difference if I denied it? You seem sure of our intentions.’

‘You came here, to my home,’ Kadar said, ‘to convince me to sell you my resources. While they are still mine to give away.’

It was an appropriate time to stand, but he knew that getting up would be just as clumsy as sitting down had been. He did the best he could by straining in the thighs to rise just slightly, but he couldn’t get any farther than that. He gave up trying quickly, speared by the prince’s grim amusement.

It was past sunset, and their round little room was growing dark. It was hard to see Winner’s face when he finally spoke again.

‘Between the devil and the deep blue sea,’ was what he said. A soft sigh followed it. ‘Two things of yours which I have never seen.’

‘You are committed to pacifism,’ Treize replied indirectly. ‘That is a long and worthy tradition of which you are justly proud. I believe you will continue to contribute to your cause by first contributing to mine.’

‘Placing weapons in the hands of soldiers?’ Winner said bitterly. He moved from the window, but not far, and when he did his face was lost to the darkness. ‘The quicker to eliminate resistance from those I would betray.’

‘Plainly; yes.’

‘Your honesty offers no comfort,’ the prince snapped. ‘It brings death and disaster. And your imperialist Alliance with their greedy fists and their self-righteous idealism.’

Whatever answer Treize might have made to that was cut off by a single cautious word: ‘Father.’

Treize turned his head, and found they were no longer alone. A boy no older than nine or ten, slender and tow-headed, stood half-hidden by the hangings at the arch. He did not wear a robe or turban, but clothes any European school child might have worn, a dress shirt of some light colour, khaki trousers. ‘Father,’ the boy repeated after a moment, his small voice uncertain.

Kadar’s gesture caught the periphery of his sight, but it was the boy Treize watched, as he left the protection of the curtains and scurried across the room to Winner. Safe once again within the shelter of his father’s arm, he looked wide-eyed and blank-faced at his unusual guest.

‘My son,’ Kadar announced heavily. His broad hand moved with surprising tenderness over the boy’s wheat-coloured hair. ‘Quatre. This is Colonel Treize Khushrenada. He visits us from Earth.’

Whatever that meant to the boy, it was impossible to read on his face. His round eyes flicked over Treize, up and down, pausing only a moment on his sword. ‘Welcome,’ he greeted Treize simply.

‘Thank you,’ Treize returned solemnly. ‘Your home is very beautiful.’

Quatre pressed closer to his father’s side.

Kadar sighed. ‘Eat with us this evening,’ he told Treize. ‘And then be gone. My hospitality can only be strained so far.’ He gripped Quatre on the shoulder, and gave him a light push toward the cushions. ‘I will return shortly,’ he muttered to them both, and left the room quietly.

Treize transferred his gaze to Quatre Winner again. He had known there was a son, but had never seen so much as a photograph. Kadar Winner could be, in some ways, a jealous man. That father and son looked so much alike was not startling, but to see such likeness in their eyes was. He could have been in the room with a miniaturized version of the man who had just left it, for all the feeling he could discern in Quatre Winner’s deceptively open gaze. It was poise, and it was deeply ingrained.

‘How old are you?’ Treize began, a question that had always gone over well with his cousins and nieces.

But Quatre took his time with his reply, as if debating whether to answer him at all. ‘Eleven,’ he said finally. Another surprise. The boy was small for his age, but surely he couldn’t be so shy, that old, in a culture that did not prize such sensitivity in its men.

He earned a little more time to think up a new question when an unobtrusive servant slipped into their sanctum, carrying a single candle and lighting a series of lamps with it. Golden, flickering light slowly filled the turret. He and the boy watched each other silently throughout, until the servant, making a discreet exit, suddenly dropped her candle with a horrified gasp.

‘Quatre!’ she exclaimed. ‘Your shoulder!’ She descended on him so quickly that he couldn’t evade her grasping hands, though he tried to wriggle away. Treize, confused, stared until the light revealed what the darkness had hidden– bandaging beneath the button-down, and blood seeping through both layers of cloth.

The return of Kadar brought the fuss to an abrupt halt before it could really begin. ‘Mirza!’ he snapped from the archway. ‘Leave him.’

‘His wound has opened,’ she told him in a quavering voice.

‘Then please fetch fresh bindings,’ he ordered her stiffly. ‘Enough with this shrieking. You’ll bring the house down about our ears!’

Treize, glancing back at Quatre, thought he saw gratitude for the understanding. He remembered moments of his own, the shifting balance between boy- and man-hood, the indignities of being sent from a room to the mercies of a nurse and the triumphant permission to stay with the men.

A long and harsh look sent the woman fleeing. For the first time in their interview Treize found emotion on Kadar’s face: exasperation, and a great weariness. Treize found himself ignored as Kadar knelt beside his young son, searching with careful fingers the extent of the damage.

‘He was shot,’ Kadar said suddenly.

Treize looked up. ‘Your pardon?’

‘My son was shot,’ the prince repeated. ‘An eleven year old boy, shot by an Alliance soldier.’

‘I find that hard to believe,’ Treize said, unwisely, and knew it was wrong when a pair of blazing blue eyes turned on him. ‘Rather– the circumstances?’

‘He was shooting at Rashid Maganac,’ Quatre said, glancing with those wide eyes between the two of them. He gained confidence when his father didn’t hush him. ‘From the Maganac family on Earth.’

‘He took a bullet for a man,’ Kadar clarified, looking down at his son with something raw working over his face. ‘This is the result of weaponry. This is the danger of jingoistic politicking. An eleven year old boy with a war wound.’

Treize looked, really looked. Saw the paleness of the boy’s skin, beneath the honey sheen from the oil lamps. The sweat tracking down the round cheeks. The brightness of the wide eyes that was fever. His throat was a little tight as he memorized what he saw, locking the image in his mind for the years to come. It wouldn’t change anything, but he would remember it.

The nurse arrived in a flutter of her dark abayah and rolls of medicinal wrapping in her hands. Kadar rose, drawing the boy with him, and pushed him, very gently now, to the door. Quatre hesitated just out of reach of the woman, however. He turned back cautiously, but not to his father.

He bowed, just slightly, to Treize. He knew exactly how low to incline himself, Treize realised, just as Kadar must have known when he was a child. That same instinctual grasp of the order of the universe, and his place in it.

It was a bow to an equal.

‘Assalamu alaikum,’ Quatre Winner said to him, and left with his nurse.


	49. Forty-Nine

I dried my hands on the grease rag. Trowa handed me a water bottle, and I drank. I hadn't realised how thirsty I was.

"Come inside." It was an order of some sort, but I knew he wouldn't force me if I really resisted.

But I went; there wasn't much point in arguing. I was ready to collapse, and maybe I could cajole Trowa into cooking for me. He wasn't exactly a gourmet chef, but it was a damn sight better than what I'd be able to make for myself with peanut butter and pickles.

My oil-slick fingers slipped on the door-handle. I cursed, and grabbed it again, only to find it wouldn't turn properly. And suddenly I felt like crying. Why the fuck wouldn't it open?...

I saw him looking at me, worried, if you'd call the slight dilation of his pupils and the darkening of green to hazel-brown of his irises any kind of compassion. He put a hand on my shoulder, lightly, so lightly I barely felt it. Would that half-assed movement comfort him? because it sure as hell wasn't doing much for me. I shook him off, and punched the door, getting satisfaction from the solid thunk and the pain that lanced up my arm.

"Come inside," Trowa repeated, and this time, he was pleading. I heard it in his soft voice. He was begging me to stop– don't make him face panic and shame and tears, because he won't be able to run from it then, either... come inside, Duo, don't do this. Not you.

He opened the door, and I followed him in, silent.

 

**

 

We're all different people. The pilots, I mean. I mean, that's a no-brainer, right? Five men (kids) who're from completely different walks of life, different cultural heritages, different issues and widely different motivations for being pilots. I like to think I'm a simpler case than the others.

Name: Duo Maxwell. Duo for a dead pick-pocket, Maxwell for a dead priest who failed to give me God.

Age: anywhere from fourteen to eighteen, I figure. I don't suppose it matters.

Race: Caucasian.

Place of Residence: A shanty on Colony L2-D1893. Assuming that someone else hasn't taken up in there; though they're welcome to it.

Why It's Important To Fight For Dead People And A Shit-hole-In-the-Wall Shanty: Because they're my dead people and shit-hole shanty.

That's the name of the game, peeps. Alliance, OZ, Romafeller-hell, even Relena Peacecraft– threatened my turf. And I'm in no mood to let them.

Make sense? Yessur. Thank you very much.

I wonder sometimes why we try to be a team at all. Wouldn't it be enough to agree to some basic strategies and then go our own way? Take Heero Yuy. I'll admit, there was something about him– maybe the completely insane way he tried to bosk himself when I caught him trying to bosk the Peacecraft idiot. Maybe I felt a little loyalty; I didn't rescue him because I felt bad about scaring him into suicide. I guess I didn't think that anyone who maybe had some turf, somewhere, that Alliance was walking all over should be stuck in a hospital, unable to go out and kick some ass. There've been days when I just really wanted to shoot someone. I can understand that. But, ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, no sooner do I save his ungrateful Eur-Asian hide than he robs me blind, fucks with my baby (that's Deathscythe), and takes off never to be seen nor heard from again until he tries to bosk himself yet again, but with a bigger audience.

I got tired of that pretty fast. If I hadn't been so busy falling into those depthless cobalt eyes, I probably would have tried to smack him around some. Knock some sense into him.

Heero'll never really be a "team effort" kind of guy. He's got to do it all himself, or it isn't done right. I don't think he really trusts any of the rest of us... except maybe Trowa. But they're a lot alike in that respect. Maybe they trust each other because they're both so anal and perfectionist.

Quatre wants us all to be one big, happy family. I don't blame him. He's entitled to his dreams. But I'm entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is that his dream is bunk. He's nice. He's sweet. He's made of sugar and puppy-dog-tails and all that good stuff. But no one fights a war because they honestly believe humanity is worth saving. Do they? I mean, hell... even for Quatre, it became a revenge issue. He succumbed. They took his dad, and he went out and shot the hell out of a lot of people for his old man. I don't know why he felt guilty. He should have talked to Wufei. Wu understood revenge, whatever name he called it. But Quatre– him and those schmucks, Zechs Merquise, and Mr. Arch-Nemesis, Treize Khushrenada– I hope they'll learn their lessons. You don't fight a war on ideals. That's how you get a lot of unnecessary deaths on your hands.

You kill only as many as you absolutely need to, to win. After that, hands off, buddy. None of this "make the people so sick of war that they'll never fight again" shit. People forget. That's why Mariemaia almost won.

So this is my story. I'm something of a cynic, though I'm often pleasantly surprised when things go my way. On the other hand, when they don't, boy, they don't.

**

 

I don't like to remember how I got here. Maybe some other time, far in the future, when I'm ready again or just stupid enough again to open a door that should probably stay shut, I'll let myself remember it. Here's what you need to know.

You know about the moon base, and that whole circus? Yeah. So, there I was with Heero and Wufei. Wufei didn't like me all that much. He doesn't really like me now. It was just starting to hit me that Heero didn't like me too much, either. I was feeling kind of small and alone. And I hurt. That huge monkey G set on me, to make my "capture" look "realistic" hadn't gone easy on me... bones I didn't know I had ached, as if the marrow was boiling and cooking my intestines up nice and extra-crispy.

How did I deal with that? Simple. I took it out, fair and square, on my pet Ozzies.

Whenever those whoresons stepped into my humble abode, I let 'em have it. I'm a street rat, and I have insults down to an art-form. I was enjoying picking apart those gooney egos, and had started in on the antics and sexual preferences of their probable ancestors. Then I got a shock. One of my pet Ozzies was Trowa Barton.

I didn't know him. Not really. And for all I knew, he'd defected. We'd all been given the chance. Maybe he was the only one smart enough to take it. I didn't know.

Trowa told them to cut off my hair. He said it would shut me up. He was right.

I don't remember them doing it. I don't remember if they did it there, in the cell with Heero and Wufei who would probably understand how humiliated I was, or if they gave me the dignity of dragging me into a closet somewhere with pruning shears. I remember sitting in a corner, a long time later it seemed, tugging on the ragged ends of my shorn hair and maybe almost crying.

It's just hair, isn't it?

I walked around in a daze after that. I functioned. I even went back to normal, on the outside. I didn't stop pushing the guards, didn't stop babbling escape plans at Wufei, didn't stop making Heero review everything he'd learned this time out in the real world beyond our prison bars. I did a lot of goofy stuff, to reassure the other guys. To reassure myself. It was only hair.

I remember one night that Wufei plaited it, what was left of it, just enough to have tiny tail at the scruff of my neck. His hands were gentle, surprisingly so. I don't remember why he did it or if I thanked him. I hope so. It helped, though I never stopped expecting the comforting weight of a braid along my spine.

 

**

 

Trowa made me some kind of noodle thing. He cut the noodles for me, the way you do for little kids, added extra shredded cheese and kept refilling my lemonade. We ate in silence.

He feels guilty. Well, too bad. He can keep feeling guilty til the day he dies. If he doesn't regret anything else he's done in his entire life, he'll regret what he did to me.

He didn't know me. For all he knew, I'd never even miss it. He didn't know.

It didn't matter sometimes that Trowa's eyes were green, not blue, and his hair was lighter than Heero's and silkier. It didn't matter that he really didn't want me.

"I'm not, you know, gay," he said to me.

"I don't care." I unzipped my pants, and pushed them to my ankles. "I'm not either, I think."

What about what I did to him? He'd crossed my turf. Duo, for the dead street rat. Maxwell, for the dead priest. Braid, for the woman who'd loved me, the only love I'd ever had in all the universe.

It wasn't all about revenge. And maybe someday, when I'm lying dying somewhere, I'll tell Trowa I'm sorry for hurting him, and ask if he liked my kisses. I'd always thought he did. I was the only love he'd ever had, which is one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

Don't do this, Duo, not you. Not you.

He scrubbed my oily fingers with the hot wet washcloth. He held me gently, hip leaning against mine gracefully, chin resting lightly on my shoulder. I closed my eyes.

"Better?"

Maybe someday.


	50. Fifty

“So,” Duo Maxwell said. He settled onto the step beside Rashid, cradling a glass of orange juice between his knees. “Nice night. Does the real desert get cold like this one?”

Rashid idly scratched his beard, gazing out at into the night that hovered beyond the lawn lights of the Winner estate. “Colder,” he answered. “It can drop below zero in an Earth desert at night.”

“You come out here a lot.”

“Sometimes I find it peaceful to be alone,” he admitted.

“Then I won’t bother you.” Duo shifted, but did not rise. Rashid didn’t ask him to.

 

**

 

“The thing is,” Duo said.

Rashid took the thermos of hot tea that Duo held between them. It smelled of chai spices and cream, spicy on the tongue and warm in the stomach.

“What is ‘the thing’?” he prompted, when Duo never finished.

The young man accepted back the thermos when Rashid offered it, and sipped slowly. “Were you ever married?” he asked suddenly.

Rashid pursed his lips. He leant back against the step behind him and kicked his long legs out, just able to reach the courtyard’s cobble stones with his heels. “No,” he said. “I was never married.”

“Seems like you would have been. A lot of the others are.”

“Yes; this is true.” He paused as Duo screwed the lid onto the thermos, empty now, and dangled it from its strap. “Why do you ask?”

Duo didn’t reply. But after a while, he did rise, and said, “Good night,” and when he walked away, his boots made almost no noise as he climbed back toward the house.

 

**

 

“It seems to me that a man in your culture who doesn’t get married has a good reason for it,” Duo said.

Rashid found himself looking skyward before he remembered there were no stars to see within the confines of a colony. “I have known since I was younger than you that I was called to be a warrior,” he murmured. “One does not subject a woman to that uncertainty.”

“Bull,” Duo retorted.

Rashid looked, then wished he hadn’t. His face was oddly hot and he sought the stars again before he recalled himself.

“Are you ashamed?”

“Regretful, perhaps,” he corrected. “There are times when I wish I could have had that life, had a family. I would have liked to have sons. It would have been–”

He knew it wasn’t the answer Duo wanted.

 

**

 

It was many nights, maybe two weeks worth of nights, before Duo finally came back. Rashid had brought the tea this time, for four nights in a row in hope of offering it in apology, in peace. He smiled at the sound of Duo’s feet in the yard, and watched for his slight figure to resolve out of the darkness as he came in, not from the house, but the sand.

Duo stopped at the bottom, his hands in his pockets. Their heads were level this way. Duo wore a dark shirt with a loose collar, and it showed the pale skin of his throat and chest.

Duo said, “I’m legal now. An emancipated adult. I have paperwork and everything.”

Rashid’s mouth went dry.

“And I think this dancing around is stupid,” Duo continued. A slight breeze fanned his hair against his neck. “And if you can’t reconcile with that, then I’m going to leave.”

They stared at each other. The breeze died away, and Duo’s arms straightened, pushing his hands down against the fabric of his trousers, forcing his shoulders back and straight.

He left. Rashid poured the tea into the yard, and sat alone until he could not longer smell it.

 

**

 

Quatre hugged his friend good-bye, and Trowa offered a hand in a rare gesture. Duo shouldered a backpack a little heavier than it had been when he’d arrived with it a month ago, but only a little. He stuck tinted glasses over his eyes, and waved over his shoulder as he walked out of the courtyard to the road.

Rashid was there, standing next to the taxi that would take Duo Maxwell to the shuttleport, and then away, very probably never to return. Duo’s steps slowed, but never quite stopped, so that even standing looking up at the taller man he was never quite still.

“I’m sorry,” Rashid said.

Duo’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Eyes hidden, his beardless smooth face was still young, still boyish, when none of the rest of him really ever had been.

“Do you ever get tired of being alone?” he asked.

“Yes,” Rashid answered honestly.

Duo nodded, once. Rashid opened the taxi door, and Duo slung his bag to the floor of the cab. He hesitated there, one hand on the roof of the car, the other fidgeting at his belt-line, looking for a pocket to hide in. “I’m sorry, too,” he said finally. “It could be different.”

Rashid shut the door after him, and stood back as the engine started. Duo didn’t look back as the taxi pulled away, but Rashid waited anyway, long past the point where the car had disappeared down the road.

He tried to go back to the steps that night, but it didn’t have the same appeal anymore. He didn’t try it twice.


	51. Fifty-One

‘A successful ambush,’ Wufei announced with approval. He released a final Alliance Leo from his dragon-jawed claw, watching it land– crunched throughly– amid the wreckage of their hour-long battle.

Trowa frowned at his primary screen and the analyses it had produced from his computations. ‘I really thought it was enough ammunition,’ he muttered.

Quatre, overhearing that remark on the frequency each pilot had shared during the mission, muffled a smile. ‘Back to our safe house,’ he told them both. ‘We can discuss strategy for–‘ Distracted, he paused. ‘I have a heat reading,’ he reported. ‘Directly below–‘

Over his speakers, he heard a hoarse, tinny voice scream that now-familiar tag-line, _‘It’s a Gundam! It’s a–‘_

And then... a sound rather horribly like a... squish.

‘Oh, no,’ Quatre said.

Over the open frequency, Wufei suddenly snickered.

Trowa’s face appeared on Quatre’s secondary screen wearing a quizzical expression. ‘Did you just–‘

‘Oh, no,’ Quatre repeated.

‘He _stepped_ on someone,’ Wufei said. ‘You _stepped_ on someone.’

Quatre closed his eyes. ‘Oh... oh, no.’

‘Calm down,’ Trowa soothed. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad.’

Fighting extreme reluctance, Quatre forced his eyes open. He reached for his keypad, and activated a ground-facing camera. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth. ‘Oh,’ he groaned.

‘Just go back to base,’ Wufei cut in. ‘We’ll take care of it there.’

‘Try not to think about it,’ Trowa advised.

‘It’s... it’s everywhere.’ He grabbed the gearshift for the left foot, and gingerly raised it. After a moment of hesitation, he carefully scraped Sandrock’s heel on an untouched patch of nearby grass, cringeing all the way.

‘Come on, Zero-Four,’ Trowa said. The rev of his Vernier engines purred over the line. Quatre nodded, swallowing hard, and followed with a sigh.

***

 

Duo reappeared from the supply closet with an extra tank. Quatre thanked him politely, attaching it to the frame of the pressure washer and adjusting the nozzle of the hose. He aimed it at Sandrock’s waiting foot; but he didn’t turn on the tank.

‘What’s wrong?’ Duo asked.

‘Soap,’ Quatre decided. ‘Industrial soap. A lot of it.’

Duo turned a grin into a little cough. ‘It’s really not so bad.’

‘Don’t mock me,’ Quatre complained. ‘I just can’t– I can’t– That’s it. Forget it. I’m going to take off the foot.’

‘You’ll never get a replacement in time,’ Trowa called down, finally leaving the cockpit of his Heavyarms and jumping lightly to the controls of his waiting lift. ‘We’re moving out in three days,’ he added as he began his descent to the hangar floor. ‘A replacement part that specific will be at least three weeks. You’ll probably need your left foot before then.’

Quatre sighed. Duo took pity, and gently removed the pressure hose from Quatre’s hand. ‘I’ll help you,’ he offered kindly. ‘You’ll see. It’ll be all clean.’ He toggled the tank, and a forceful spray hit the Gundam’s tread with an audible smack and hiss.

 

***

 

Trowa flipped off the light, and sat on the edge of Quatre’s bunk. They were alone in the room, for once, as their chosen bunker had more than enough space for the three pilots currently occupying it. Duo preferred to sleep alone, and was handily holed up on the opposite side of the hangar hiding the Gundams Heavyarms, Deathscythe, and the suspiciously lemon-smelling Sandrock.

‘So,’ Trowa said. ‘Long day.’ He pulled at the hem of his turtleneck, and lifted it over his head. When he was free of the clingy cotton, he rubbed his static-shot hair out of his face. ‘Quatre?’

The blond young man looked up from contemplating his pruny fingers. ‘Hm?’

‘I was thinking about moving on,’ Trowa told him, reaching down to peel off his trainers and set them under the bunk. ‘I’ve been gathering information about the Dubai Base. They’re getting suspicious deliveries of outlawed explosives.’

‘That’s nice,’ Quatre said.

Trowa paused, but decided to let that pass. ‘So I’ll probably leave tomorrow. Oh-nine-hundred.’ He waited, and got no response. ‘So... I was thinking it would be nice to– you know– before I leave? Quatre?’

‘Oh,’ Quatre said. ‘Oh. Of course.’ He pushed up on his elbows. ‘Um. Do you want to be on– um–‘

‘Yeah.’ Trowa popped the snap of his jeans, and lay on his side as Quatre budged sideways on the slender mattress. ‘Belt?’

‘No, I already took it off.’ Quatre unbuttoned his shirt, but when Trowa tossed it to the floor, he slipped off the bed after it. Trowa managed to keep from commenting as the smaller boy carefully folded the shirt and put it away in the bureau, then did the same with his khakis. Trowa put out a hand to invite him back under the sheet, but Quatre, already started on his routine, couldn’t just stop. Trowa sighed as Quatre began a litany of apology while combing his hair and crossing to the small metal sink to brush his teeth.

‘I don’t mind if you haven’t washed your hands since supper,’ Trowa said, hoping to curtail any further delay.

‘Oh,’ Quatre said, his hands halfway to the soap dispenser. ‘Um.’

‘Think of it as being spontaneous,’ Trowa tried, inspired. That won him a tiny smile, and Quatre returned to the bunk, skinny legs and knobby elbows unusually awkward as he lay down, now dressed only in an undershirt and his shorts. Then suddenly he was up again, dashing back to the sink.

‘It’s only another moment,’ he apologised, twisting on the faucet. ‘Sorry, Trowa.’

‘Look,’ Trowa said, sitting up. ‘We don’t have to do this. Not if you’re not in the mood.’

‘No, no. It’s fine.’ Quatre dried his hands on the rag, then quickly wiped his face. ‘All done.’ He came back to the bed. ‘So– where were we?’

Trowa offered a kiss, and followed it with a firm hand pushing Quatre back onto the mattress. Finally. ‘Pillow,’ Quatre reminded him. ‘And– you know.’

‘Right.’ Trowa was the one who left the bed this time, though he made it from the bunk to the cabinet over the sink in something less than a stride and a leap. Quatre had– predictably– removed the box of condoms when it was less than half-full, and he found the rest of them in the bandaid box. He shucked the foil packaging straight into the garbage pail, just to avoid any comment from Quatre, and hurried back, stripping out of his jeans as he went.

Quatre was sitting against the wall, one leg crossed beneath him, and he was chewing on his knuckle. He did not look even remotely ready for sex. Trowa halted at the bed, dismayed.

Quatre looked up, and did two things that Trowa was beginning to really hate. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and then he sighed.

Trowa very carefully kept his mouth shut as he dropped the condom to the sheet. When he finally asked, ‘What is it?’ he was proud of his level tone.

‘I just can’t stop thinking about it!’ Quatre burst out. He threw his hands into the air. ‘I know it’s still in the tread, I just knew the pressure wash wouldn’t be enough!’

‘Look, this is a little much,’ Trowa said flatly. ‘It’s been eighteen hours. You cleaned Sandrock. Twice.’

‘I was thinking I could use the internal scan. If I recalibrate the sensors to search for biological material–‘

‘There is nothing there,’ Trowa said, slowly and distinctly, just in case Quatre’s new obsession was the result of an unreported blow to the head.

‘You’re not being very supportive,’ Quatre accused. He climbed to his feet and pushed past Trowa to the bureau, pulling out his clothes. ‘It shouldn’t take more than a few hours. Don’t wait up.’ He glanced up, and bit his lip. ‘Um– put that on ice, or something.’

 

***

 

Duo emerged from the kitchenette with a tray of mugs and a streaming french press advertising the presence of strong coffee. He poured, and gave one mug to Trowa, joining the Heavyarms pilot where he sat on a pile of crates. ‘Weren’t you leaving this morning?’ he asked.

Trowa tried not to grind his teeth. ‘I’m being supportive,’ he muttered.

Quatre finally finished filling his buckets, and turned off the hose. ‘Good morning, Duo,’ he said absently.

‘Morning,’ Duo replied cheerfully. ‘Coffee before you start the floorshow?’

Quatre turned a flat look on their friend. ‘Ha,’ he said. He slipped his goggles down over his eyes, and picked up a clear plastic slicker, donning it and then a shower cap. Then pink rubber gloves.

‘What did you do, raid the bathrooms?’ Duo asked, curious.

‘All four,’ Trowa confirmed sourly.

‘Brush,’ Quatre demanded, thrusting out a fuscia hand. Trowa rose from his crate and obediently extended the first weapon– a large toilet scrubber. Quatre gripped it tightly, and climbed his step ladder to reach high into the deep rubber treads of Sandrock’s massive left foot. His shoulders bunched under the slicker, and then he grimly began to scrub.

‘Man,’ Duo said. He covered his mouth with his and leaned toward Trowa. ‘Poooooncy,’ he sang under his breath.

Watching Quatre clean was not one of Trowa’s favourite past-times, and when Duo shortly suggested a game of hearts, they settled into their cards with only a few glances toward the spectacle of a multi-billionaire playing car-wash. They had played uninterrupted for perhaps an hour before they heard a shocked gasp from Sandrock’s direction, followed by a horrified groan.

Trowa was on his feet within seconds and standing at Quatre’s side. ‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘Quatre?’

Wide, tragic eyes turned down to him. ‘I was right,’ Quatre whispered. ‘This is... is... beyond gross.’

‘Show me,’ Trowa ordered him. Quatre lowered his arms, then turned his face away as he held out one soapy, gloved fist. Trowa turned it palm-side up, and toward the light.

‘It’s a fingernail,’ Quatre choked.

‘Dude, really?’ Duo jumped up to Trowa’s side, peering closely at Quatre’s hand. ‘Aw,’ he added, sounding disappointed. ‘That’s nothing.’

Quatre looked back, gaping now. ‘You’re kidding me,’ he said in disbelief.

‘Man, I found a whole finger once.’

‘I got an ear,’ Trowa contributed, trying to be helpful. Quatre’s expressive face registered his deepening disgust with them both. Duo clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Stay right here,’ he said quickly, and sprinted off toward the kitchen.

Quatre’s hand spasmed in Trowa’s. ‘Make it go away,’ he begged. Trowa patted Quatre’s arm sympathetically, and plucked the fingernail– a thumb, he thought– from Quatre’s palm. Duo returned a moment later with a plastic bag and a roll of tape.

‘Here,’ he said, unzipping the bag and holding it open. ‘Drop it in.’

Trowa glanced at Quatre, goggles and flowered shower cap and all, and then looked at Duo, who wore a face-splitting grin. Trowa shrugged, and dropped the nail into the bag. Duo sealed it, and held both bag and tape toward Quatre.

‘What?’ Quatre asked. Understanding dawned. ‘Why?’

‘It’s your souvenir,’ Duo explained innocently. ‘You can tape it up in your cockpit. S’what I did with my finger.’

Quatre went pale; then he went faintly green. ‘Trowa,’ he whimpered.

Trowa did the appropriate thing, and sighed. ‘Thanks, Duo, but I think we’re going to say ‘no’ to that idea.’

Duo’s mouth turned down in a pout. But he brightened almost instantly. ‘Cool,’ he decided. ‘We can start a trophy room instead. Reckon you can find that ear, Trowa?’


	52. Fifty-Two

Duo came to the hospital five days after Heero was checked into it. He had already seen Lady Une, who told him Preventers had destroyed what was left of Wing Zero. Sally came by to complain that Noin and Merquise had disappeared without even a note. Quatre came to complain that Trowa had disappeared even faster, but Trowa had left a note, and so Heero didn't really see why Quatre seemed to think he couldn't follow.

Relena came by, trailed by a new bodyguard. She looked harried. She looked tired. She had jumped when the nurse came to change Heero's IV. She didn't stay long.

Duo came every day, but only after the lights were out and Heero was supposed to be asleep. They would watch each other through the window in Heero's door. Heero liked that. It was good to know there was someone guarding the halls for him, while he was down.

Until finally he came in, at risk of being shooed out with close of visiting hours, at nine fifty-two on New Year's Eve.

Heero meant to greet him, but it seemed unimportant anyway, as Duo certainly knew whose room he was entering. Duo distracted him immediately, because he was carrying a large bag over one arm, and with the other cradled to his chest several meals' worth of hospital pudding. What most caught Heero's attention, though, was the strange hat on Duo's head.

The puddings scattered with a plastic clatter over the visitor chair. “Good,” Duo said, as if in answer to a question Heero hadn't asked. “You're still awake.”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“I caught you napping yesterday.” The bag landed on Heero's calves.

"What is that?"

"It's for you."

"No, on your head."

"Ahhh. This is Federico." Duo posed his hands and tilted his head with a very serious look. It took a moment for Heero to realise it was in mockery. Duo winked at him just a little, as if he knew.

"Are you high?" Heero asked, just to be sure.

"I'll let that pass for now, but one day we're going to have a discussion about the difference between cheerful and intoxicated." The chair legs scraped noisily over the tile as Duo hauled it near. "Federico is the designer. These things are the shit right now. If you want one, I'll get it for your birthday."

"No,” Heero said softly. Smiling felt awkward. He didn't try very hard. “But thanks. I don't wear hats."

“What's that, then?”

The journal. He had almost forgot it was in his hands. It ought to have been worrisome, the holes he was discovering in his awareness. If it was, he could have written about it. But it wasn't. He had had head injuries before and such symptoms passed with time. Even if they didn't--

Duo had taken the journal from him. The pages made soft whispers as he flipped them with his thumb. “It's empty,” he observed.

"Therapy,” Heero explained. “She said. It might be if I threw it at her."

Duo grinned in a flash of straight teeth. There was a new chip in one of the maxillary central incisors. "You're supposed to write down feelings, and you're either not sure you have any, or you don't know what they are."

"Neither really.” Duo set a knee on the chair, slid into it limb by limb, instead of just sitting. “I just don't think about them. It doesn't matter."

"She'll probably be angry if you don't do it. She might make you stay longer." Still not done sliding. Duo's foot landed and stayed propped on the plastic rail of the bed. "I'll do it, if you want."

“I'm not going back to see her again. She said I could sign out against medical advice, so I did. What's in the bag?"

Duo rolled his eyes, but he didn't seem surprised. "Clothes. I figured you'd be busting out soon. I thought the least service I could do to the people of Sanq was protect them from the sight of your fish-belly pale ass hanging out of the hospital gown."

Perhaps it should have mattered that Duo had anticipated him, but that didn't bother him, either. Duo liked to be clever, anyway, and it didn't hurt to allow him triumph when it was earned. The comment about his ass, though, seemed unwarranted.

No questions, though. Quatre would have asked-- worried-- if he was ready. Even Trowa might have wondered. Relena would have argued and said useless things like how she wouldn't allow it. Duo brought him clothes before he even knew if Heero wanted to leave.

"Are they Angelo?” Heero said. “Or whatever designer that thing on your head is?"

"Federico, darling, and no, I got them from the Oxfam up the road."

"Thanks then." He tipped the bag into a spill and pulled out flannel shirts and black denims. There was a jean jacket, socks, a hooded jumper, even underwear and shoes. They were eminently normal. They were almost identical to the clothes that Duo himself was wearing.

Duo added, "I looked for spandex, but even charity shops aren't that tacky."

“Thanks,” he repeated, more dry with the teasing. Duo always did everything quick, big, brash. Even when it was aimed at Heero, Heero found, increasingly, that he didn't much mind. It was different from the apathy he'd felt the past week, since waking up after surgery on Christmas morning. He felt as though he were waking up. He felt more alert, just keeping up with Duo's conversation. Such as it was.

He picked at pieces from the bag, slowly assembling what could be most easily worn. "Relena said you were leaving."

The twinkle in Duo's face faded. "I'm getting kind of itchy under the skin,” he said shortly. “People here look at me funny. I don't like it."

"Maybe it's the hat." He poked it with a fingertip, and Duo's grin returned. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know." Duo leant his elbows on the edge of Heero's bed. The journal passed from hand to hand, back and forth. "You know where you going yet?"

"No." Itchy. Heero thought he might understand that. Something like that was breaking through his calm. "Maybe... I'll follow you."

"Yeah?" Duo perked instantly. "That'd be cool. I wasn't going to ask, in case you glared at me or pretended you hadn't heard." He hesitated, then. "You sure you're all okay? Because now I think about it, it is kind of weird that you actually want to spend time with me. Maybe you should let the doc keep working on you."

"What's that supposed to mean? I always wanted to spend time with you. It was Chang that always whined about it."

"Well, yeah, but just 'cause you weren't making noise doesn't mean you were jumping at the opportunities. I don't mind filling in the blanks, but sometimes talking to you is pretty much silent film era."

Duo was smiling, though. It was more teasing, then. Heero was learning to recognise it. He had even missed it-- occasionally-- in the year they hadn't seen each other. He liked that it felt as though no time had passed. It was better, even. This time he knew he was done.

He was done. Even if there were more uprisings, clone wars, invading armies of super-Gundams, it would be someone else's responsibility. He would be lucky to walk without a limp. The therapist said his hands would always tremble. He had finally abused his body beyond recovery.

Something went gentle in Duo's face, suddenly, and then he smiled again. He spat into his palm and presented it to Heero. "Friends," he said firmly.

The spittle was hardly attractive, but he knew what the gesture meant. Duo had done it to him before, and so had Howard, when they'd agreed, aeons ago, to repair his Gundam after his disastrous landing on Earth. He kept his face stony to hide his inner cringe, accepting the smack of Duo's hand into his, the firm shake that rattled his arm.

The rest happened organically, like dominoes falling. He was touching Duo. He enjoyed touching Duo, even like this. It had been a thought that occurred to him with inconvenient regularity. It was certainly occurring to him now. It was certainly an inconvenient time.

'No guts,' Duo used to say, before plunging headlong into battles they were meant to lose, and never had. 'No glory.'

The press of their lips wasn't as special as he had imagined. Duo was caught off his guard, having failed to anticipate this, for once. His mouth was slack, and so was Heero's, as he tried to replicate from memory something he had only ever witnessed, not performed. It had seemed much easier when Quatre and Trowa had done it. They hadn't seemed nervous at all. Perhaps they would have been, if they'd known Heero was standing at the other end of the hall, that long-ago night before the Battle of Libra.

Stray thoughts disappeared then. Duo moved, slipped, his hand slipped in the bedsheet, and he landed awkwardly, closer to Heero, who discovered that the new position alleviated the mash of their noses together, freed breathing passages, and brought Duo's teeth down into his lower lip. The last part especially was enjoyable. Heero's pulse jumped to a fast pace.

Then it was over.

Duo was wide-eyed. Child-like, mussed by it, flushed from it. Their hands were still-- damply-- clasped together, but there was nothing child-like in the tight grip of Duo's fist.

"Sorry," Heero said, but he wasn't.

"Uh." Duo released him abruptly. He snatched the funny hat from his head. The braid fell to his shoulder and down his back. Duo scratched vigourously at the back of his neck. The colour was not fading from his cheeks or ears.

"I--” Heero released a breath and took in a new one. “If I'd known that was the way to get you to shut up, I might have used it during the war."

Duo's mouth moved. Then, finally, he laughed, reluctant at it until it relaxed his rigid spine. Heero was pleased. He didn't want Duo to be-- upset. It hadn't turned out how he had hoped. Anticipated.

In some of the more pleasant scenarios he had plotted, things had gone on quite a lot longer than a single kiss. There were obviously factors he had miscalculated.

“Get dressed,” Duo said, and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “If we want to have time to get drunk before New Years, we need to high-tail it."

Duo still wanted his company. That was a good sign. Heero took it at face value and accepted that no ground had been lost, at least. He worked his legs over the edge of his bed, tested the reliability of knees worn out from too long laying still. When he was sure of his balance, he shed his hospital gown, and assembled the clothes Duo had bought in the order he would don them.

Duo's head was tilted away. His eyes weren't. Heero noticed, and wasn't sure what it meant.

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Duo muttered, almost inaudibly. Heero heard. He had shed the notion of shame and even modesty long ago. Still, Duo's gaze on him burned just a little. He didn't want to contemplate why. But he was glad.

 

**

 

They rode the underground for fifteen minutes and four stops from the hospital, and then they took a bus. Heero suspected Duo of catering to his injuries, but that was cause for a certain amount of gratitude. He was only a little sore from sitting on hard plastic seats, but he was able to walk quite well when they reached the street Duo said was 'theirs'.

It was not the best quarter of the city. It was not the worst, and so Heero didn't worry about his lack of weaponry. There seemed to be many young people loitering on the pavement, standing by billboards sprayed with hand-drawn graffiti celebrating the defeat of Dekim Barton, crudely questioning the parentage of Mariemaia Khushrenada. They wore clothes with slogans, smoked viciously, talked loudly in Sanquian and English and French. Many of them wore the same hat as Duo, wide black brims curled low over their faces, as sullen as they were. Heero appreciated Duo's disguise. They went unnoticed, two teenaged boys in crowds of them.

The doorway Duo chose was indistinguishable, too. Its paint was peeling. The brick facade was unbroken from apartment to apartment. Even the gaps of the alleys all looked the same. They sheltered the wind, and little else.

Duo entered with a key. That seemed significant. Heero had largely expected the kind of hidey-hole Duo usually found, where lockpicks would be more effective. The stairs went down, not up. There was no second door, a poor security design, and apparently drafty architecture as well.

"You live here?" It was nothing more than a basement-level studio apartment. His room at the hospital had been larger. And warmer. It was the usual hidey-hole, then.

"No,” Duo said, and tossed his keys onto a pile of worn shoes collected at the bottom of the stairs. “I met a guy who does. He said I could stay as long as I wanted."

"Why?"

Duo shrugged. "I saved his life, kind of. Or his leg, anyway."

There were slit windows, nearly at the ceiling, grated over and peering onto the street. The light from them was negligible. The noise was not. Every sound from above was clearly audible. Even footsteps from whatever residence had the next storey sounded as near as Duo's. Louder, even. Even in his boots, Duo could walk as silently as a cat.

A tiny efficiency kitchen, little more than a hotplate between two cabinets and a small, ancient ice box. A mattress on the floor, no box spring, an obviously well-used sheet in a wrinkled sprawl over it. Newspapers, sorted by section, arranged in messy piles. Books by the mattress, supporting thick, cheap candles and mouse traps. The walls were bare brick, plastered with paper clippings and old propaganda posters stolen from the streets. In what space was left, there were bottles. Alcohol, all kinds. Some were empty and overturned. Most were in varying levels of drunk. Dozens of bottles. It was a particularly claustrophobic little space.

"Maybe you should tell me the whole story,” Heero said. “If I'm going to be staying in his place."

"While you were off taking down the evildoer, the rest of us were looking for survivors.” Duo fell onto the mattress, bouncing a little on creaking springs. “I found Philipe trapped under his own suit. Held his leg together until we got a medic. He's at your hospital, if you're wondering."

"Rebel or OZ?"

"I didn't ask."

OZ. The posters told their own story. Duo would rescue an Ozzie. "How long have you been here?"

"About a week,” was the vague answer. If he had been living here since the aftermath of the ground battle at Christmas, it was six days. There was no reason for Duo not to have said six days. But Duo routinely obscured details needlessly. Heero only noticed now because he had had six days to start to remember it.

“Wufei was here with me for a while before that,” Duo said then, “but you know him. Moved on."

"You didn't want to follow him?"

"I was waiting on you."

"Why?"

"Sit down. You're making me dizzy." But Duo was rising as he said it. He had to stand on the tip of his toes, stretch his arm high above his head. He turned on the radio on the windowsill. It cranked to low static, resolving slowly into crackling Sanquian dialect. It was almost soothing.

"Hour 'til midnight. I didn't figure you'd want to go out."

Heero finally took Duo's instruction. The mattress was thin, its springs protesting weakly under his weight. He shifted to the cold concrete floor instead. Duo stepped around him, dipping to the congregation of bottles near the pillow-end. "Expensive champagne, just what the occasion calls for. No glasses clean. I'm not much of a housekeeper, not that it matters. I don't think Philipe really had any glasses to start with."

"You were serious about getting drunk?" The bottles resolved into numbers. Fourteen on the floor. More stacked on the crate with the lamp, hiding around its wooden corner. A twelve pack of beer, several missing, by the door. "Are these yours?"

"Some are." Duo eased onto his back, though it seemed to take no effort for him to move so slowly. He opened the wire basket on the bottle with the very tips of his fingers. "You shouldn't drink too much, you've still got meds in your veins. At least toast the new year with me."

"I don't drink much anyway." Duo's hair was longer than before. At least four centimetres. It was low in his eyes, like Heero's, so that it moved with his lashes when he blinked. "Are you a drunk?"

"If I was, would you judge me?" Duo pulled the cork out with his teeth and nails. It popped, but not much. "I drink too much,” Duo said, and spat the cork to the floor. “I don't drink enough. It's New Year's, Heero. Just be my friend for an hour."

"I'll always be your friend."

He wondered why Chang had left, because leaving implied he had previously seen reasons for staying, reasons that were possibly more significant than a debt of honour. The debt would not have been owed to Duo, in any case, except abstractly. So perhaps he had left because it was not good, staying with Duo. There were no clues, though, in Duo's face, in the dim chilly basement.

Duo presented him with the bottle. "From Sanq Palace. I stole it from that fancy dinner they had celebrating Relena's something-or-other."

He sipped. It was Krug rosé. Light and clean, made with pinot meunier grapes. He didn't think Duo knew how good it was. He swigged and handed it back. "How is she?"

"Kind of a wreck. I feel bad for her. They don't give her any time to herself. I tried to visit her but I was barely there before they went pulling her off to some speech or other."

"It's what she wanted. That's what she said, at least."

"Still, she's seventeen. And she was kidnapped and drugged and dragged around by that bitch on wheels and her grandpoppy. No-one lets her be a kid, and she doesn't even know she needs to be."

Said with no sense of irony. He could have been talking about either of them.

"She could walk away from it. Other people have." Heero was not comfortable discussing Relena. He had only seen her once since the night when he had blown apart Barton's fortress to destroy him and the girl before they could cause too much damage. Though he had never allowed himself to consider Relena's safety, she had been far too forefront in his thoughts. He remembered her soot-covered face perfectly. He remembered shooting at the little girl. He remembered the hollow click of his empty chamber. He had failed her. At least then, when she had sat at his bedside and held his hand and talked to him, he had had the benefit of hospital anaesthesias. He did not remember what she had said to him. He was glad.

It was his turn to walk away. That made him glad, too. He was ready.

Duo's ankled nudged his, and he became aware of the silence. “Sorry,” Duo murmured. “I never could figure out if you were in love with her or not."

"Neither could I.” The champagne had left his throat dry. “I don't understand her."

"She's high class." Seriously said. Duo didn't know what it meant, but he meant it. He was sipping from the bottle of expensive champagne he had taken without knowing what expensive meant. "Different kind of mind,” he said. “From you and me."

Maybe. But Heero had been trained to make the leap. "She's completely unprepared for what she's taking on."

"Yeah, but maybe no-one is. Prepared, I mean. No-one's ever done it before. Not even Heero Yuy Senior." The hat came off finally. The long braid tumbled out like a snake loosed from its coils, falling flat over the grungy sheet.

"You'll ruin it,” Heero said. “Your hat."

Duo was looking back at him. His lips were moist from drinking, a little open for the rise and fall of his chest, and his eyes were only a little open, as if he were sleepy, but he seemed calm finally. He said, "It's just a hat."

"I thought it was a Valentino."

"Federico." He grinned. "I just bought it to fit in. An experiment in social psychology."

"Fit in where?"

The curl of a smile faded and his face smoothed. "Some of them know who we are, here. It hides the hair." He held out his hand for the bottle.

He didn't give it back. "We have nothing to be ashamed of, Duo."

“I'm not ashamed. I got better things to do than hide in this dump or up at the palace like Quat and Trowa did."

"What's next then?"

"New Year's, in--" Duo twisted as lithe as his hair to see the clock. "Forty-seven minutes."

"I mean longer term than that. You said you were going places."

"I say a lot of bullshit." The smile was back. "Here, pass that, please."

He hesitated, and did not like that he had to. But he obeyed.

"It won't disappear in three gulps."

"Was it bullshit?"

"What?" Duo drank. A drop of wine escaped down his jaw. Heero had a sudden, distinct thought about the taste of it, dry and sweet against the salt of human skin.

"You broke me out of the hospital so we could go places. Away from here."

"We'll go, then. Anywhere you like."

"Let's go tonight."

"You really want to?" Faced with it Duo was not enthusiastic. "You should sleep off the hospital meds at least."

"I'm not drugged,” he repeated impatiently. “I'm capable of making a decision. Plans. Travelling."

"You'd be capable if you were blind, deaf, dumb, and in the middle of an L2 sewer without a map." With a last swallow Duo put the bottle down. It clinked, but dully. “If you really want, we'll go tonight. But not 'til midnight. I want to hear the song on the radio."

The promise pleased him. He allowed himself to slump so that the small of his back was supported against the edge of the mattress. "We can do anything you want."

"I agreed already. You're sitting too far away."

Yes. Acres of distance. Less than two feet. He pushed on his wrists and his rump cleared the edge, settled into fabric.

"There's good." It seemed related, the faint blush of colour on Duo's skin, otherwise only white and blue in the dim window light. The bottle was back in his hand, the grip of his fingers tighter than before. He drank studiously.

Heero was quiet. He wondered if Duo had brought him to this place to watch him get stoned. Waiting for the radio song. Why was the radio song important? Which song did he expect to hear?

There had been music on Howard's barge. Music on Peacemillion, which had of course been manned by the same crew. Raucous and jarring and sometimes misogynistically themed or containing slang code for drugs and sex. He knew that Duo had listened to it, in the way that noise was sorted and discarded by the brain when conscious thought was concentrated elsewhere. He had never heard Duo play music just for himself, even at the school. Duo's room had always been silent when he had passed it in the dorms, and he had never carried an iPod like other students. Maybe he didn't listen to music, then. Heero didn't.

"Why'd you kiss me, back there?"

The timing of the question was jarring. But suggested by their new physical proximity. He was inches from Duo's feet. Bare feet. He hadn't noticed Duo removing his boots. He had pale feet, of course, but his toes seemed delicate and there were veins overlaying the bones.

"I wanted to,” Heero answered belatedly. “I've always wanted to. Why'd you let me?"

The bottle paused at Duo's lower lip. "Ditto. More or less."

Not brash. Meant to sound that way, but it wasn't, and Duo's eyes slid from his. Heero said, "Do you want me to kiss you again?"

A clean blunt fingernail scraped at the label on the bottle. It was half empty now. Disappearing sneakily. The label came away from the glue without too much effort. Heero didn't have clean nails. The grime had been there since Christmas.

"I've never... you know,” Duo said. “With a guy."

“Is that why you're getting drunk?” he asked. “In case I jump you?"

"Think it'll help?"

"Not particularly.” To mute it. To forget it. If it was unpleasant. He allowed himself to think about, to anticipate the variables. It was possible it would be unpleasant. But he didn't think so. He had imagination enough to imagine that. “Do you?"

Their eyes held. Duo was still smiling. Heero decided that it was also possible to miss something without knowing that you had. Duo had become familiar.

"You got a certain amount of nerve, you know."

"I don't think hiding from things helps much."

"Like apologies?" Duo moved, suddenly enough in the stillness that Heero tensed, but he was only lifting his jumper, baring his belly. There was a large bruise there, fading to green at the edges, still dark purple in the centre. In a flash Heero remembered that, too, forgotten before in the chaos and haze. "That's all you, my friend."

He trailed his fingers over it lightly, careful of the slightest pressure. Despite the bruise, Duo's skin was very smooth, cool but warming under his touch. Truthfully, this time, he said, "I'm sorry."

The blush was back. Duo fidgeted with the hem of his jumper, the wool stretching over his knuckles, as if he wanted to push it down again, but he didn't. “Didn't think you'd actually say it."

"I never wanted to hurt you."

"You coulda just told me you wanted decoy. I can play dead."

"Maybe I should have." The perfect shape of his fist. The bruise was darkest at the pointer finger impact, which had led the punch. He remembered.

"You wanted me out of the way."

"You're reckless. You had done what I needed you there to do. I wanted you safe."

"I know. Still a poor excuse." Duo drank again. "I wanted you safe, too. Look at all the trouble you got into without me."

“It all worked out in the end." More or less. He reached for Duo, a contrivance to knock over the bottle. It was doubly successful, because the bottle fell and spilled what was left, but also because Duo didn't flinch away, when he had anticipated the odds that he would. An accident and a not-accident. Duo's eyes flicked to the fizzing puddle splashing across the concrete and soaking the newspapers, then back to Heero.

"Sorry," he lied.

"You're not." Duo screwed his mouth to the side. "About any of it. It's okay. I didn't figure you would be."

"I am."

"You should be. I came back just to help you, you know. Worth at least a little genuine feeling."

"I feel things for you," Heero said.

Duo was nervous. Duo did not like being nervous. It made him bolder, his eyes leveler, fear turning to strength. "What things?"

Reverence. The feeling other men felt in museums, before great art, before saints and stained glasses. Before women like Relena Peacecraft. A kind of hopeless yearning, for what, he wasn't sure, because he was fairly sure now that whatever he felt Duo returned something of it, and certainly enough for kissing, and almost as certainly enough for sexual intimacy.

Except he also felt other things that weren't so easy to reconcile. There was disbelief, to discover that Duo was living here with a liquor store's worth of bottles. Almost dissolute. There were no armies to fight now and he could think about things like the desire to rescue Duo, to keep him, protect him, as much as he could in a newly battered body and a mind that did not want to wake up entirely. He wasn't Relena, who would forever be behind a Gundamium wall of political imperatives and urgent global forces. But the freedom of access did not meet up with the strange shifting edges of their almost friendship. It did not combine into a single emotion that he knew how to name. He felt stupid that he couldn't.

The words that came weren't quite right. He knew they weren't, could feel the not-quiteness. But not-quite could be almost, as well, and perhaps Duo would know that, too. Duo knew many things before Heero did. He had never liked that before, but it was maybe one of the things that he had missed.

He said, "I love you," and then noticed that his hand was still and flat on Duo's stomach, and he could feel a pulse, from one of them. Speeding.

He kissed Duo, before he could object. It was less awkward than at the hospital, because Heero was ready this time, and because he knew how he wanted it to feel. Duo was supine and stiff but he stayed still, at least, so that when Heero leaned over him they were very close, and his mouth was only slack for a moment. Then it was hesitant, and then it let him in, let him touch with his tongue. He felt small teeth, and warmth, and the champagne still lingering. Heero breathed out carefully, and kissed him again, deeper, harder.

He was aroused, quickly enough to confirm that he truly was free of drugs at last. So was Duo, which confirmed that there would not be protest. He settled slowly beside the other boy, in the narrow strip of mattress left for him by the wall. It sagged beneath them, but he hardly noticed. Duo lay woodenly, watching him, but his heart was speeding, racing, when Heero covered it with his hand, searched for the beat of it in his neck. This part was what he had imagined. He was glad. He was glad at how good it felt, unequivocally good, unstolen, unforced, fully conscious. Did Duo feel the same way? He hoped. He tasted the champagne from Duo's lips and he didn't know. Alcohol tolerance was different for everyone. But when they kissed again Duo clumsily touched him, his hand coming up, the wrong hand at the wrong angle, trapped awkwardly, but curving to cup Heero's shoulder.

Duo was scared, then. At least Heero thought that was what it was. Because he was a virgin? There were too many unknown factors to differentiate and he could not, under these circumstances. Each half of Duo's ribcage fit under his hand, precious and new and strange and good. He touched Duo's nipple and Duo sucked in his stomach; his navel was a gentle slope and seemed perfectly made for his thumb to press. Perfect.

He reached down. For the sheet. He pulled it up over them both. "Maybe I'm a little more drugged than I thought,” he said, louder at first and softer by the end, disliking how his voice sounded saying those words. “Can we... just lie like this?"

Duo's eyes opened. "Why are you doing that?"

"I don't want to screw this up."

"You don't want to screw me. Up."

"I want you." He rested his head back against the wall. The wall was cold, too. The only thing not cold was them. "You're shaking.”

“I'm not--”

“That's why we're not going to do anything."

"You're being a jerk."

He wasn't and Duo knew. But he agreed quietly. “Just playing true to form, I guess." He wormed until he found enough room to lay his head on the pillow. It smelled musty. "We have time."

"Only a half hour to midnight.” From the side he watched Duo's eyes roam the ceiling, the studio. There was a newsprint cut-out on the crate, just a foot away from them, showing a small black figure being dragged from a disabled Gundam. The headline trumpeted the triumph over the terrorist rogue pilots threatening the Earth Sphere. It was from L2. “I'll turn back into a pumpkin," Duo said, his whisper hoarse.

"Neither of us is going anywhere tonight."

Unless Duo was planning to run while Heero slept. He didn't think so. Even like this.

"Jesus,” Duo said. “At least kiss me again."

He did, solemnly. Duo gripped a fist in his sleeve. That was something. He was careful to avoid the bruise, but he wrapped his arm around Duo, took a long breath, breathing him in. There was too much weight on this. He didn't know why Duo wanted to push further when it was clear he wasn't ready; except that it was like Duo to push, even if Duo himself didn't know why.

Or couldn't stop himself, simply. The kiss was barely more than a press of parted lips, but Duo inched his knee higher until it nudged Heero's. Then his leg was between Heero's thighs, just a little, just enough. He was pressing his hips to Duo's before he could assert the control not to. His instincts wanted to wait. His body was ready to move and knew what to do. But there was something wrong with being this aroused when Duo, who had never shown fear except in nervous laughter and a blazing determination to fight back, could only shiver and clench and avoid his eyes.

Perhaps the determination was still there, if not the bravado. Duo cupped his neck, twined their ankles. His bare foot stroked against Heero's calf. "Come on,” Duo whispered. “Please."

"Are you sure?" There was almost no point in asking. They both knew.

And he knew as well that Duo would bull through on the bluff. He did. He pulled Heero down again and there was more fire now in the way his mouth sought Heero's.

If he stopped now, he would be the tease, not Duo. Not that it should matter. What should matter was that something he didn't really understand brought him here, to this moment, with Duo. Finally. He would be an idiot to let it pass without acting. Acting. He was kissing Duo, and their lips were tender now from doing it for so long, but that made it better. Duo's skin was hot now. His jeans were loose enough to admit Heero's hand, under the button, under the flies. Duo made a noise that wasn't quite a noise, just a breath, when Heero touched him through his underpants.

“On your side.” He shifted them, and Duo came, all elbows and joints, guided by Heero's hand on his hardness. He squeezed more in encouragement than anything else, and Duo shuddered against him. He unzipped Duo, for room, and then Duo suddenly found Heero's skin, his hand a broad palm up Heero's spine, and it was so good he had to close his eyes against it.

It flowed, then. Undressing, enough for contact, enough to keep protection from the winter all around them. He held Duo's hips between his hands like the ridges of a steering wheel. He put his mouth on Duo, swallowed him, lipped him, licked him. There was no sight involved, only other senses that weren't usually so strong, taste and touch and smell. Duo's hands were in his hair, almost gripping too tight, but that was just part of it feeling grand and good and important and--

And Duo whispered for him to stop.

He did, already knowing why. His mouth tingled, felt stretched. He licked his lips to wet them and turned his head toward the wall, not Duo's nudity.

"I'm sorry."

He swallowed away the entire endeavour. "What did I do wrong?" he said.

"Nothing. You were good." Hands fumbled at his back. He was aware of it without looking. Duo wrenched his jeans up.

"I made a mistake." Almost a question. Almost an answer.

"No. No, you didn't. I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry, I'm such a fuck-up sometimes. Not you."

"Shh. Shut up.” Heero sat up. He straightened his shirt. “I knew it was too fast."

Duo was rubbing his mouth. His face. He leaned off the mattress, grabbing a bottle. Gin. He ripped off the cap and drank deeply.

"Why are you doing that?" He moved faster than thought again, snatching the bottle away. It sloshed over his fingers, spattered the mattress and their legs. "You don't need the alcohol. Do you?”

"You've got very little idea what I need."

"Maybe you could tell me.”

No. Not yet. Duo was shaking. He was flushed. He opened a vodka with only a few swallows left, and finished it with a long stretch of his neck. He lay back with his arm over his eyes.

The studio existed again. There was temperature and light and sound. Sound. They were counting, on the radio. A crowd of voices. There were whistles and shouts and roars, and then music. The song.

That song. Heero did know it. He didn't know the name or the words, but it was familiar. Familiar. They played that song on New Year's Eve, all around the world.

Duo's eyes were closed. He breathed unevenly, in jagged bursts.

Heero brushed his lips with a finger as the song faded to a finish. The happy celebration on the radio felt wrong, now. Far away. Belonging to other people. Relena and Quatre at the palace were surely celebrating, and Trowa, wherever he had gone. Maybe Wufei somewhere listened to the same broadcast. Mariemaia in her secured hospital suite, guarded by a nurse who might be moved by her youth and her fragility.

"I'm sorry,” Duo mumbled. “Some happy New Year."

"I'm not unhappy now." Heero licked his lips one more time. They didn't taste like anything, now. "The song's over. We should go."

In a moment, Duo nodded weary assent.

Heero stood. He tightened a shoelace, rubbed at the pull of stitches that had gone unnoticed during their-- activity. "How long will it take you to pack?"

“I don't have anything.”

Not even a change of clothes? Or was it all Philipe's? Would Philipe even know they had been here? Or was there a Philipe at all?

Questions for later. "We'll travel light," he said.

"Okay." Heero's hand stayed extended for a long minute, as Duo lay there, internal in some world Heero didn't know. But then his eyes opened, and he sat up; he took Heero's hand to his feet and he stood straight, no wobble, no hunch. He took his hat when Heero found it on the floor, miraculously safe from all the spills, and he wound his braid and hid it under the brim with the ease of too much practise.

“Let's go,” Heero said.


End file.
